Last saturday, on March 6th 2017, Prof. Dr. Alan Dilani visited Vienna in order to give a lecture on “Design and Health” for the Kurdish community in Austria. Prof. Dilani is a founder and General Director of the International Academy for Design and Health (IADH) and co-founder of the Journal World Health Design. He holds a Ph.D. in Health Facility Design from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and a Masters of Architecture in Environmental Design from the Polytechnic of Turin in Italy.
The main idea of Prof. Dilani’s concept “Design and Health” is an interdisciplinary approach of sciences such as medicine, public health, psychology, architecture, design and art, which generates progressive ideas that contribute to public and individual health as well as social interaction. The question of how societies can profit from the creation of a healthy environment lies at the core of Prof. Dilani’s work. In this context, he is assuming a rather broad understanding of health per se, which includes physical, psychological as well as social factors.
In his lecture, Prof. Dilani on the one hand discussed the influence of external factors (environment, traffic, architecture) and on the other hand individual decisions (exercise, diet, lifestyle) on individual and collective well-being.
The lecture was received positively by the audience and ended with a vital discussion about the various possibilities and opportunities for the Kurdistan Region in the field of public health.
