Dr Mark Drane’s Post

What can fabric first mean for social fabric? Interesting reflection from The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland's president Chris Stewart PRIAS on the links between rehab and retrofit and the dual meanings words and language can have. "Rehabilitation is more typically associated with the action of restoring someone as opposed to something back to health. The idea that retrofit goes beyond the material aspects of the built environment and incorporates immaterial aspects and meanings is important. Buildings are not just artifacts but are liveable examples of social structure behavioural patterns. We need to do more to recognise the connection between the rehabilitation of architecture and social cohesion." In public health, some health promotion approaches critique the idea that health is an ideal condition and that our job as professionals is to push ill health back up the hill to this ideal state and back on a pedestal. Instead health promotion is about the constant support that is needed to maintain wellbeing and avoid entropy. Maybe there's something similar to reflect on for social wellbeing - the need to constantly support and maintain social fabric using sustainable methods and resources and building on the fabric that already exists in people in local places My biggest learning from my PhD that 20 years in architectural practice didn't teach me is a deeper understanding of the street environment right outside our front doors as both a physical environment and a social one. We say it in practice but often don't *really* get it. If we can rehabilitate both then we stand a chance of addressing health for people and planet. #SocialWellbeing #HealthyStreetlife