What does your layout and design have to do with wellness?
A whole lot apparently. Last week, Colleen McKenna from CannonDesign gave a webinar on new spaces for integrating wellness into campus recreation centers. The definition of wellness itself has evolved rapidly over time, but currently 96 percent of Generation Z associate it with overall health.
With that in mind, there are multiple areas you need to hit on in order to give students a well-rounded wellness experience. In fact, your layout alone can have a huge role in integrating wellness into campus culture. During the webinar, McKenna looked at five specific areas of wellness and gave examples for each on how to use your facility to address them:
Stress Management
Bring nature in, placing plants in nooks and crannies around your rec center.
Eating Right
Set up a temporary kitchen around your facility (or even outside) to host cooking demonstrations.
Sleep Deprivation
Introduce nap stations, whether just in your rec center or even throughout campus.
Physical Activity
Offer a custom experience by having personal assessment areas.
Virtual Wellness
Utilizing apps – especially for Generation Z who has never been in a world without social media – will be a big touchpoint to reach some students on their wellness journey.
With the above four points in mind, it’s good to ask what areas of wellness you are missing in your recreation center. McKenna gave practical, cost-friendly ways to implement these ideas – like how simply adding greenery can help with stress management.
You can find the entire webinar here. I challenge you to take time to sit down today and watch it. There are action items you can pull from it to send you down the path of greater wellness provision for your students. Don’t be afraid to try something new!
But if nothing else, the first thing you can do is get a shrub.
