Abstract: The health-oriented planning and design for cities have emerged as crucial approaches as urban environmental challenges become increasingly prominent. In this study, we extended the “source-to-sink” theory, incorporating social and economic factors, and proposed a “source-flow” model tailored for urban design. This model emphasizes the critical issues of “human health” and “city health” within healthy cities, treating them as the “sources”. By interconnecting environmental, social, and economic solutions as the “flows”, the model collectively optimizes urban structures to mitigate environmental problems and enhance life quality of residents. Caita Modern Service Industry Area in Shenyang is an archetypal old city center facing challenges, including unfavorable wind environment, poor comfort and limited vibrancy. With this area as an example, we leveraged both “wind source” and “people source” perspectives, and used PHOENICS software to quantify and simulate the wind environment. Our proposed optimization strategies encompass “air flow + water flow + green flow” and “people flow + traffic flow + economic flow”. The results demonstrate that these strategies can expand ecological benefits along waterfronts, improve the quality of the wind environment, invigorate neighborhoods, elevate residents’ happiness, and offer novel insights for urban waterfront planning and revitalization.

Key words: healthy city, urban design, wind environment simulation, city waterfront