Health-oriented behavior as a creator of sustainable development of the built environment

The project is based on the behavioural determinants of an individual's placement in space and the environment. We focus on health-oriented behavioural determinants. We identify the latter as creators of sustainable built space. The importance of this innovative approach can contribute to solving the problems brought to light by the COVID -19 pandemic in the last two years. We start from the premise that health-oriented behaviour derives from personality traits, beliefs, motives, values, perceptions and other cognitive elements, behaviour patterns and habits that relate to health. The latter, health-oriented behaviour, in turn, shapes individuals' and populations' perceptions of health and well-being. This is the subject of behavioural and health psychology, which are the cornerstones of sustainable psychology. The latter is closely linked to socio-economic progress, which leads to an improvement in people's standard of living and well-being. In this context, well-being is understood as a synonym for happiness and quality of life, all of which are related to health, comfort, and the satisfaction of life needs. Satisfaction is linked to individual perception, which is limited to the acceptance of environmental conditions, while healthy behaviour is understood as synonymous with the avoidance of stressors and the limitation of harmful influences. On the other hand, in the built environment, values and beliefs about how spatial and environmental qualities can influence well-being have changed, highlighting the need for greater clarity, role, importance, contribution and consideration of the interrelationships of multiple factors. From this, we are developing the fundamental research idea. Thus, we are primarily interested in finding answers to the question of which factors of health-oriented behaviour can contribute decisively in their dimensions to multidimensional changes in the built environment while accepting the risks of sustainable development and its changes (mutations). This research introduces a new paradigm in the way we think about the built environment. To provide a framework in which to think about this, we borrow from Maslow's theory of the hierarchy of needs, which states that, according to the hierarchy, we must first satisfy our basic life needs at the bottom of the pyramid (breathing, food, water, etc.) before moving up the pyramid in pursuit of our higher desires for pleasure, love, security, self-worth, and creativity. We reinterpret this hierarchy as a hierarchy of environmental experiences with a focus on health-oriented behaviour. At the lowest level, the aim is to identify these behaviours that form the basis for guidelines to create a sustainable built environment. At the top of the pyramid is the idea of well-being as a consequence of a built environment that supports our physical, social and emotional health, cognitive functioning and productivity. The consequences that the pandemic COVID-19 is already leaving behind will be reflected in the long term, especially in the mental and physical health of the inhabitants of urban environments. Therefore, our project will primarily focus on the development of interdisciplinary urban models to minimise the consequences of COVID-19-like impacts. Based on the identified key determinants of health-oriented behaviour, we would build a model for the sustainable development of the built environment (e.g., in the post-pandemic period). Unlike most existing research that extracts factors contributing to health-oriented behaviour from the existing urban environment, the innovation of this research is a reinterpreted or reversed approach, i.e., health-oriented behaviour is identified as the main creator of the sustainable development of the built environment. In the proposed project, this problem is addressed through an interdisciplinary approach involving mainly researchers from the fields of urban planning, psychology, and methodology.