Author Guidelines

The Journal of Salutogenic Architecture is an international, open-access, double-blind peer-reviewed journal publishing scholarship on how architecture and the built environment support human health and well-being. These guidelines explain the journal's requirements for preparing, submitting and revising manuscripts. Authors should also consult the journal's Aims and Scope and Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

1 Scope and Types of Contributions

JSA welcomes original research articles, review articles, theoretical and methodological studies, and rigorously evaluated case studies. Interdisciplinary contributions must demonstrate a clear connection between the built environment and health or well-being. The journal covers three interconnected areas:

·         Salutogenic Architecture and the Built Environment: Applications of salutogenic theory, comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness; architectural aesthetics; spatial experience; and related architectural and environmental theories.

·         Well-being in Architecture and the Built Environment: Indoor environmental quality, thermal, visual and acoustic comfort, biophilic design, healing environments, responsive architecture, resilience and evaluation through users' experiences and health-related outcomes.

·         Green Built Environment and Technologies: Sustainable design, passive and low-energy strategies, green building technologies, and sustainable and non-toxic materials with explicit relevance to health and well-being.

Submissions must offer a substantive contribution supported by an appropriate theoretical framework, sound methods and clear evidence or reasoned analysis. Studies of a specific location should explain their contextual significance and implications for the wider scholarly or professional community without overstating generalisability.

2 Online Submission

Submit manuscripts through the journal's online submission portal. Register or log in, complete the submission metadata and upload the required files. New manuscripts must be submitted through the portal; email is used for enquiries and editorial correspondence.

The corresponding author is responsible for communicating with the journal, keeping co-authors informed and ensuring that all authors approve the submission. Names, author order, affiliations, title, abstract and keywords must match across the submission metadata and author-identifying files.

3 Required Submission Files

Upload the following four files. Clearly identify the cover letter, complete manuscript and metadata sheet as files containing author information that are not for anonymous peer review. Upload supplementary materials, permissions and reporting checklists separately where applicable.

Cover letter. State the manuscript title and article type; explain its contribution and relevance to JSA; confirm originality, exclusive submission and approval by all authors; and disclose related publications, preprints, conference presentations and any circumstances requiring editorial attention. Identify the corresponding author and provide contact details.

Complete manuscript with author details. Include the full text, an author information page and all required declarations. The author page must give each author's full publication name, department and institution where applicable, city, country, email address and ORCID iD. Identify the corresponding author and any equal contributions or present-address notes. Independent researchers should state their independent status, city and country. Institutional email addresses are preferred where available; a reliable alternative is acceptable.

Anonymous manuscript for review. Include the full scholarly text, tables, figures, references and relevant declarations, with identifying information removed or appropriately masked as described in Section 4.

Publication metadata sheet. Provide the title, article type, abstract, keywords, author names in publication order, complete affiliations, email addresses, ORCID iDs and corresponding-author details. Include funding and grant identifiers, contribution statements, conflicts of interest, ethics and consent information, data availability, and any AI-use disclosure. A clearly labelled Word document containing these fields is sufficient; the information must also be entered in the online submission fields where requested.

All authors must provide their own ORCID iD. Registration is free through ORCID. Authors must use accurate affiliations and must not claim an institutional association they do not hold.

4 Preparing the Anonymous Manuscript

Remove author names, affiliations, email addresses, ORCID iDs, acknowledgements and other direct identifiers from the review version. Check filenames, document properties, comments, tracked changes, headers, footers and supplementary files for identifying information.

Retain necessary citations to the authors' previous work and refer to that work in the third person. Mask identifying details in funding, contribution, ethics and repository statements only where necessary for anonymous review, and provide the full information to the editor in the complete manuscript and metadata sheet. Retain the substance of ethics and conflict-of-interest declarations. Restore all masked details in the final accepted version.

Where an essential study location, registered protocol or public dataset makes anonymity impracticable, explain this to the editor rather than removing information required to assess the research.

5 Language Length and General Formatting

Prepare manuscripts in clear English, using either British or American spelling consistently. Define specialist terms and abbreviations at first use. Professional language editing is optional; authors remain responsible for clarity and accuracy.

·         Submit editable Microsoft Word files, preferably DOCX. PDF alone is not sufficient for the main manuscript.

·         Use A4 pages, 2.5 cm margins, Times New Roman 12-point type and double spacing for the main text, abstract and references.

·         Include consecutive page numbers and continuous line numbering in the review manuscript.

·         The complete manuscript must not exceed 8,000 words, including the abstract, highlights, contribution statement, declarations, references, tables, captions and appendices. Separate supplementary files are excluded from this limit. Seek editorial agreement before submitting a longer manuscript.

·         Number main sections and subsections consistently, for example 1, 1.1 and 1.1.1. Do not number the abstract, references or declarations.

·         Place tables and figures close to their first citation. Use italics where appropriate and avoid decorative formatting or underlining for emphasis.

·         Use standard units, explain measurement conventions and present equations with an editable equation editor.

These are JSA's manuscript preparation requirements. Use the journal's current manuscript template when one is provided; these instructions apply where the template does not specify a detail.

6 Manuscript Structure

Original research articles should contain the following elements in order:

1. Title

2. Abstract

3. Keywords

4. Highlights

5. Contribution to the Field Statement

6. Introduction

7. Materials and Methods or Methodology

8. Results

9. Discussion

10. Conclusions

11. Acknowledgements

12. Funding

13. Ethics Approval Statement

14. Informed Consent Statement

15. Conflicts of Interest

16. Data Availability Statement

17. CRediT Author Contributions

18. Declaration of AI Use

19. References

20. Appendices, where applicable

Results and Discussion may be combined when justified. Review, theoretical and methodological articles may use an alternative structure suited to their purpose, but must retain a clear account of their approach, conclusions and required declarations. Authors must explain why a declaration is not applicable rather than silently omitting it.

7 Title Abstract Keywords and Highlights

Title. Provide a concise, informative English title of no more than 15 words. It must accurately represent the study and its contribution. Avoid unexplained abbreviations and unsupported claims of novelty.

Abstract. Provide one self-contained paragraph of no more than 200 words, covering the research problem or objective, approach, principal findings and conclusion. Include important quantitative results where applicable. Do not include references, tables, figures or undefined abbreviations. Review and theoretical articles should identify their approach and principal synthesis or argument.

Keywords. Provide four to six specific terms or phrases, separated by semicolons. Prefer recognised disciplinary terminology and avoid excessively broad terms. Use established abbreviations only where they aid discovery. The keywords must match those entered in the submission system.

Highlights. Provide three to five bullet points summarising the principal findings, contribution or methodological advance. Each point must contain no more than 75 characters, including spaces. Avoid unsupported promotional claims.

Contribution to the Field Statement. In no more than 50 words, explain what the article adds to existing knowledge or practice in salutogenic architecture or the built environment. Distinguish the contribution from the study's general topic and use language accessible to an interdisciplinary readership.

8 Research Reporting and Disciplinary Standards

Introduction. Establish the relevant scholarship, theoretical basis and research gap. State the research questions, objectives or hypotheses and explain the relationship to the journal's scope.

Methods. Explain the research design, setting, dates, selection of cases or participants, sampling, sample size rationale, data sources, instruments, procedures and analytical methods. Describe relevant ethical safeguards. Identify software and versions, model assumptions, measurement units, instrument validity and validation procedures where applicable. Distinguish measured, simulated and self-reported outcomes.

For environmental measurements and building simulations, report relevant boundary conditions, operating assumptions, calibration and uncertainty. Qualitative studies should describe recruitment, researcher positioning, data collection, analytical procedures and measures supporting credibility. Reviews should explain how evidence was located, selected and synthesised; systematic reviews must report a reproducible search and selection process.

Use recognised reporting guidance appropriate to the study, such as PRISMA for systematic reviews, STROBE for relevant observational health research, or SRQR or COREQ for applicable qualitative research. Consult the EQUATOR Network and submit a completed checklist where a relevant guideline applies. Report registration or preregistration details when applicable.

Results. Report findings accurately, including relevant null, negative or contradictory findings. Quantitative studies should report sample sizes, effect estimates and uncertainty, such as confidence intervals, and statistical test details where applicable. Distinguish prespecified analyses from exploratory analyses.

Discussion. Interpret the findings in relation to the research questions and existing literature. Address alternative explanations, limitations, uncertainty, transferability and implications for design, health or practice. Associations must not be presented as proof of causation without a design and evidence supporting that inference.

Conclusions. Answer the research questions concisely and identify the supported contribution. Do not introduce new evidence or make claims beyond the study's findings.

9 Tables Figures Maps and Supplementary Materials

Number tables and figures consecutively and cite each in the text. Provide informative captions and explain abbreviations, units and symbols. Tables must be editable rather than screenshots. Supply publication-quality figure files; photographs and raster images should normally have at least 300 dpi at their intended display size, and vector formats are preferred for line drawings where available.

Maps, architectural drawings and environmental diagrams must include the scale, orientation, legend or spatial reference information needed for interpretation. Design images must distinguish existing conditions, proposed interventions and simulations. Visualisations must accurately represent the underlying evidence. Disclose substantive image processing and label generated or illustrative content clearly.

Obtain permission or verify an appropriate licence for reused material. Captions must identify the source and any separate copyright or licensing conditions. Remove personal identifiers from participant images unless appropriate consent for publication has been obtained.

Label supplementary files clearly, cite them in the manuscript and describe their contents. Supply data dictionaries, survey instruments, code, model parameters or additional analyses where needed for understanding or reproducibility. Supplementary files must be ready for publication and must not contain confidential information.

10 References and Responsible Citation

Use APA style, seventh edition, consistently for in-text citations and the reference list. Cite relevant foundational and current scholarship. The suitability of a source depends on its relevance and reliability; older seminal works and authoritative reports, standards, datasets and software may be appropriate.

·         For one author, cite the surname and year. For two authors, cite both surnames each time. For three or more authors, use the first author's surname followed by “et al.” from the first citation, unless additional names are needed to distinguish sources.

·         Include every cited retrievable source in the reference list and cite every reference-list entry in the text. Personal communications are cited in the text only.

·         Arrange references alphabetically by author and apply APA rules for works by the same author, including year suffixes where necessary.

·         Provide complete, verified bibliographic details and DOI links in the form https://doi.org/... where available. Use a stable URL when appropriate and no DOI is available.

·         Present names, affiliations and references in Roman script. Transliterate non-Roman references and provide an English translation of the title in square brackets where required.

·         Provide a page or other appropriate locator for direct quotations. Identify “in press” work only when formally accepted and label preprints clearly.

Consult the official APA Style guidance for source-specific formats. Reference management software may be used, but authors must verify the resulting citations. Fabricated references, irrelevant citations and citation manipulation are prohibited. Cite JSA articles, an author's own publications or reviewers' suggested sources only when directly relevant to the scholarly argument.

11 Authorship and Contributor Responsibilities

Every listed author must satisfy all of the following criteria:

1. Make a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to acquiring, analysing or interpreting its evidence.

2. Draft the manuscript or revise it critically for important intellectual content.

3. Approve the version submitted and the final version for publication.

4. Agree to be accountable for the work and cooperate in resolving questions about its accuracy or integrity.

Funding, administrative support or general supervision alone does not establish authorship. Acknowledge contributors who do not meet the authorship criteria, with their permission. Guest, honorary, purchased and ghost authorship are prohibited.

Provide a CRediT Author Contributions statement identifying each author's applicable roles using the Contributor Role Taxonomy. Multiple roles may be assigned to an author and a role may be shared. All authors must approve the statement. CRediT describes contributions; it does not replace the authorship criteria.

Requests to add, remove or reorder authors after submission must include a reason and written agreement from all affected authors, including anyone added or removed, and require editorial approval. Publication may be paused while an authorship dispute is resolved. Post-publication authorship changes require appropriate correction of the scholarly record.

12 Ethics Approval Consent and Participant Protection

Research involving human participants, identifiable personal information or sensitive community data must comply with applicable ethical and legal requirements. Obtain approval from the appropriate ethics committee before the research begins where approval is required. State the committee name, approval reference and date in the Methods and Ethics Approval Statement. Explain an exemption or why approval was not required, identifying the basis for that determination. Unsupported statements that approval was “not applicable” are insufficient.

Explain how informed consent was obtained, or document an authorised waiver and its justification. Separate consent for publication is required for identifiable participant images, quotations or other personal information where identification is possible. Protect confidentiality and give particular attention to vulnerable participants. Site-access permission or organisational approval does not replace research ethics approval where the latter is required.

The editor may request supporting documentation. Authors must not upload identifiable consent forms or confidential participant records as publicly accessible supplementary files. Studies involving animals must report applicable ethical approval and welfare safeguards.

13 Mandatory Declarations

Place the following statements before the references, using the order specified in Section 6. Provide the complete statements in the author-identifying manuscript and appropriately masked versions where required for review.

Acknowledgements. Identify relevant assistance from non-author contributors and obtain permission to name them. State “None” if there are no acknowledgements.

Funding. Identify all relevant financial and in-kind support, including institutional resources, scholarships and commercial sponsorship. Give funder names and grant identifiers where applicable and describe the funders' role in the research and publication decision. If no support was received, state: “This research received no specific financial or in-kind support.” Use that wording only when accurate.

Ethics Approval Statement. Give the approval or exemption details described in Section 12. For work without human or animal participants or sensitive personal data, explain why approval was not required.

Informed Consent Statement. Describe consent and any consent for publication, or explain why consent was not applicable. Identify an authorised waiver where relevant.

Conflicts of Interest. Declare relevant financial, professional, personal or other interests, including employment, consultancy, intellectual property and commercial relationships. If there are none, state: “The authors declare no conflicts of interest.”

Data Availability Statement. Identify where the evidence supporting the study can be accessed and under what conditions, as described in Section 14.

CRediT Author Contributions. Describe the agreed contributions of every author, including a sole author.

Declaration of AI Use. Disclose applicable AI use as described in Section 15. If there was no use requiring disclosure, state: “No generative AI tools were used beyond routine spelling, grammar or formatting assistance.” Use that wording only when accurate. Routine spelling, grammar and formatting assistance need not be declared separately.

14 Data Availability and Reproducibility

All manuscripts must include a Data Availability Statement. Deposit supporting data, code and research materials in a suitable repository where ethically and legally permissible, and provide a persistent identifier or stable link. Include sufficient documentation to interpret the materials. Clearly identify reused datasets and their licences or access conditions.

If supporting materials are included entirely in the article or supplementary files, state this explicitly. Where sharing is restricted, explain the reason, identify the responsible access contact or custodian, and describe whether and how access may be requested. A statement that data are available “on request” must specify the access conditions and must not promise access that cannot lawfully be provided. For studies without new data generation or analysis, explain why data sharing does not apply.

Authors must retain the evidence underlying their findings and cooperate with reasonable editorial requests for verification, subject to participant consent, confidentiality and applicable restrictions. Privacy-sensitive data must not be publicly released merely to satisfy a sharing request.

15 Artificial Intelligence and Automated Tools

Authors remain responsible for every statement, reference, analysis and visual in the manuscript. AI tools cannot be listed as authors and must not be treated as authoritative sources for factual claims. Verify all tool outputs and cite the original scholarly evidence supporting the work.

Disclose generative AI use beyond routine spelling, grammar and formatting assistance. Identify the tool, version or access date, purpose, extent of use and how the outputs were checked in the Declaration of AI Use. AI used as a research method, analytical tool or subject of study must also be described in the Methods with sufficient detail for evaluation.

AI must not be used to fabricate data, participants, quotations or references. AI-generated or AI-modified visuals must be labelled and explained and must not misrepresent observed conditions or empirical findings. Do not submit confidential third-party or participant information to external tools without appropriate authority and safeguards. Editors and reviewers must protect manuscript confidentiality and must not delegate scholarly assessment to generative AI.

16 Originality Related Work and Integrity Screening

Manuscripts must be original and must not be under consideration by another journal. Disclose and cite related work, including manuscripts using the same dataset, to explain the distinct contribution and any overlap. A preprint, thesis deposit or conference abstract does not automatically preclude consideration, but must be disclosed. An extension of a published conference paper must offer a substantial new contribution, cite the earlier paper and meet applicable permission requirements.

Submissions may be screened for text similarity, duplicated material, image irregularities and other integrity concerns. Similarity findings are assessed in context; a numerical score alone does not determine plagiarism. Authors must correctly attribute reused ideas, text, data and images and must disclose reused material from their own publications.

Suspected plagiarism, duplicate publication, fabrication, falsification, manipulated peer review or other misconduct may lead to requests for explanation, rejection, institutional referral or post-publication action, following the journal's ethics policy and relevant COPE guidance.

17 Editorial Assessment and Peer Review

The editor first assesses scope, scholarly contribution, methodological quality, ethical compliance, clarity, completeness and suitability for anonymous review. A manuscript may be returned for technical corrections or declined without external review if it does not meet these requirements.

Suitable scholarly manuscripts undergo double-blind external review by at least two independent reviewers with relevant expertise. Reviewers assess originality, evidence, methods, interpretation, reporting and relevance to JSA. Editorial decisions may be acceptance, minor revision, major revision or rejection. Reviewers advise the editor; the responsible editor makes the decision. Conflicting recommendations may require additional expert review.

Special-issue submissions follow the same quality, ethics and external-review requirements. A conflicted editor or guest editor must not handle their own manuscript or that of a close associate; an independent editor oversees the assessment. Reviewer suggestions, if requested, must identify genuine experts and disclose relevant relationships. The editor determines reviewer selection.

Review and publication times depend on manuscript complexity, reviewer availability and the revisions required. Submission or a revision invitation does not guarantee acceptance.

18 Revisions Withdrawals Appeals and Complaints

For a revision, upload an anonymous clean manuscript, an anonymous version showing changes, a point-by-point response addressing every editorial and reviewer comment, and updated author-identifying files where needed. Give page, section or line references for changes. Explain any disagreement with evidence and a clear scholarly rationale. Meet the deadline in the decision letter or request an extension before it expires.

To withdraw a manuscript before publication, the corresponding author must provide a written request, the manuscript identifier and confirmation of all authors' agreement. Obtain confirmation that the journal's consideration has ended before submitting the manuscript elsewhere. Published articles are addressed through the correction or retraction process.

Appeals must identify a substantive factual error, procedural concern or misunderstanding and include supporting evidence. Send appeals and complaints to the editorial office with the manuscript identifier. They will be considered impartially, with independent editorial involvement where necessary, according to the journal's ethics policy. An appeal does not guarantee a revised decision.

19 Author Charges Open Access and Publication Rights

JSA charges no submission fees, editorial processing fees or article processing charges. There are no publication, page or colour charges. Authors are not required to purchase editing services. Fee waivers are not applicable because publication is free of charge.

Published articles are immediately available to readers without subscription, payment or registration. Authors retain copyright and grant the publisher non-exclusive rights to publish and distribute the work. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0), which permits sharing and adaptation, including commercial use, with appropriate attribution, a link to the licence and an indication of changes. Separately licensed third-party material must be clearly identified.

Authors may share preprints, accepted manuscripts and the published version in repositories without an embargo. After publication, include the article's DOI and a link to the journal's version of record when sharing it. See the journal's Copyright and Licensing policies.

20 After Acceptance and Post Publication Responsibilities

The corresponding author must check the publication proof carefully, including author names and order, affiliations, declarations, references, figures and tables, and return corrections by the deadline communicated by the editorial office. Proofs are for correcting errors; substantial additions, altered results or authorship changes require editorial approval.

JSA publishes one issue per year, with accepted articles made available online as they become ready for publication. The editorial office communicates publication and issue arrangements after acceptance. Published articles receive a DOI and display the relevant submission, acceptance and publication dates.

Authors must promptly report significant errors and cooperate in investigations. Necessary corrections, expressions of concern and retractions are issued through transparent, linked notices under the journal's ethics policy. Published content is not silently replaced. Authors are encouraged to share their articles responsibly and accurately describe the findings and their limitations.

21 Submission Preparation Checklist

Before completing a submission, confirm that:

·         The manuscript fits JSA's scope and makes a clear scholarly contribution.

·         The work is original, exclusively submitted and approved by all authors; related work and prior dissemination are disclosed.

·         The cover letter, complete manuscript, anonymous manuscript and publication metadata sheet are uploaded and clearly labelled.

·         Author names, order, affiliations, contact details and ORCID iDs are accurate and consistent across the author-identifying files and online metadata.

·         The anonymous manuscript and review materials do not contain avoidable author identifiers.

·         The manuscript follows the English-language, formatting and word-limit requirements and includes the required abstract, keywords, highlights and contribution statement.

·         The methods, evidence, interpretation and limitations are reported transparently.

·         All required declarations are included, with approval, consent, funding, conflicts, contributions, data access and applicable AI use accurately described.

·         References are complete, verified, relevant and formatted in APA seventh edition, with DOI links where available.

·         Tables and figures are numbered, cited and readable; permissions and publication consent are in place where required.

·         Relevant reporting checklists and supplementary materials are supplied, and confidential information is protected.

·         All authors understand the journal's peer-review process, absence of author charges, copyright arrangements and CC BY 4.0 licence.

22 Editorial Contact

For submission enquiries, appeals or publication concerns, contact editor@jsalutogenic.com. Include the manuscript identifier in correspondence about an existing submission.

Website: www.jsalutogenic.com
Online submissions: Submit a manuscript

Last updated: 4 October 2026