Today a large proportion of people live in towns and cities that have grown up around business, industry and cars. Think the docks of Liverpool, the factories of Osaka, the automobile obsession of New York's Robert Moses or the low-density sprawl of modern Riyadh. Some of these places were built with human health in mind. Meanwhile, as humanity has shifted its center of gravity to cities, there has been an alarming increase in diseases such as depression, cancer and diabetes.
This mismatch between humans and the habitat we inhabit should come as no surprise. From the late 20th century, leading thinkers like American author and activist Jane Jacobs and Danish architect Jan Gehl began to shed light on the inhumane way we shape our cities with boring construction, barren spaces and brutal expressways.
His work was widely read by the construction industry, yet he was marginalised. This was an inconvenient truth that seemed at odds with mainstream architectural thinking because of its harsh and often unfriendly aesthetic style. The challenge was that, even though Jacobs and Gehl were highlighting real problems experienced by specific communities, in the absence of concrete evidence, they could rely only on isolated case studies and their own rhetoric to make their point. Could. But the recent availability of sophisticated new brain-mapping and behavior study techniques, such as using wearable devices that measure our body's response to our surroundings, has meant that the construction industry has the potential to create millions for echo chambers. The reactions are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. For the places he has made.
Once confined to the laboratory, these neuroscientific and “neuroarchitectural” research methods have come to the streets. Colin Allard's Urban Reality Laboratory at the University of Waterloo in Canada has led pioneering studies in this area. EU-funded emotional city The project is now running in Lisbon, London, Copenhagen and Michigan. Frank Surenbrock and Gideon Spanger understanding street scenes Tests have been conducted in Amsterdam, and Institute of Human Architecture and Planning It has also been followed in New York and Washington, DC.
This year, the Humanise Campaign has partnered with Allard to run a new international study examining people's psychological reactions to different building facades. This has been launched with a study by Cleo Valentine at the University of Cambridge, investigating whether certain building facades can cause neuroinflammation – showing a direct link between building appearance and testable health outcomes.
Their findings are already informing the work of my studio and many others, such as Danish practice Nord Architects, who drew on the latest research around cognitive decline when designing the building. Alzheimer's Village in DaxFrance. It is a large-scale care home that mimics the layout of a “Bastide” style medieval fortified town. The idea is to create a comfortable familiar design for the many residents whose way-finding ability has weakened with age.
Although these may seem to be isolated cases, there are encouraging signs that the construction and building design industries – once particularly resistant to research – are beginning to change. Generative AI has already changed the way architecture works. Once a novelty, it is now an essential tool. If we add neuro-architectural findings to these AI models, the change could be even more dramatic.
Meanwhile, progressive city leaders are beginning to combine a passion for economic growth with human well-being. In the UK, Rukhsana Fiaz, mayor of Newham in east London, has made happiness and health one of the key performance indicators of her economic strategy. And now that we can measure health in more sophisticated ways, I'm sure more will follow. People will realize the direct contribution of building construction to public health and human prosperity and will start promoting it.
I believe that very soon, property developers will have to look at neuroscience findings as important information alongside structural-load calculations, energy efficiency, lighting and acoustics. And the person on the street will welcome this change. Not just because it will improve our health, but simply because it will make our world more joyful and attractive.