Urban Design and Mental Health in Hong Kong

If Hong Kong is to achieve its aspirations of being a liveable, sustainable global city, one essential component is a healthy, thriving population – and architects, planners, and other citymakers play an important role.

Major cities are increasingly thinking about not just how to provide healthcare, but how to design better health into cities. An emerging target with the potential for major population impact is mental health.

Research tells us that city life increases our risk of depression, anxiety, and even schizophrenia. Cities can make us feel happy, sad, stressed, anxious, well and ill. Every week over 13 per cent of Hong Kongers meet the criteria for a common mental disorder. Young people, the ageing population, workers, and others are all affected by mental health problems that affect their enjoyment of life, their relationships, their education, employment, and the economy. In fact, the OECD assesses that mental illness costs countries 4 per cent of GDP. So how can we build better mental health into our cities?

Join Layla McCay, Director of the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health (UD/MH) and AsiaGlobal Fellow, and Asia Global Institute for an evening of multi-disciplinary presentations:

• Learn about cutting edge global trends and innovation in planning and design for population mental health and wellbeing.
• See new research on how Hong Kong’s planning and design impacts population mental health – and how to achieve more.
• Meet future collaborators.
• Explore the Main Building, the oldest structure on the HKU Main Campus. This Edwardian Baroque-style building was designed by Alfred Bryer of Leigh & Orange and was constructed between 1910 and 1912. In 1984, the building was declared a monument by the Hong Kong Government.