Ten questions concerning dynamic sensory variation in salutogenic building design

In architectural design we are increasingly witnessing a form of salutogenic-washing rhetoric, a marketing-driven tendency to justify design choices by citing alleged health benefits. This article seeks to reclaim the term by anchoring it to Aaron Antonovsky's Salutogenic Model of Health. Rather than a mere intellectual exercise, this analysis challenges the prevailing pathogenic approach to building design, which prioritizes static, comfortable environments aimed at minimizing risk factors and pathogens. In contrast, aligning with human evolutionary physiology, a salutogenic approach emphasizes design strategies that introduce health factors and foster active adaptation within dynamic environments, i.e. spaces that inherently contain stressors, which can themselves be leveraged to develop resistance resources. Within this framework, we explore ten key questions on how sensory variability, both in space and time, can serve as one of the key factors in health-promoting building design. Bringing together experts in architecture and the built environment, neuroscience and immunology, this discussion, rooted in Antonovsky's theory, examines how variations in thermal, visual, acoustic, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile environments can enhance health and positively impact the immune system, based on the identification of pathways linking sensory inputs to neuro-immune modulation. The study shows that available evidence from animal and human studies on the beneficial neuroimmune effects of sensory variation is uneven across domains, with stronger support in the visual and thermal domains. Ultimately, this leads to a proposed agenda for future research and practice in salutogenic building design focusing on multisensory dynamic variation in the indoor built environment.