Design for Wellbeing in the Built Environment

My first post to this blog, almost one year ago now, focused on designing future environments for the wellbeing of its people. Today I will take it back to the topic with Professor Libby Burton's Legacy Lecture: The Pursuit of Happiness. I share many, if not all of Professor Burton's words in her video (below) - she is interested in creating environments that make people happy and help people flourish. I would like to review the key information from her 30-minute talk. 

People are starting to ask the question "How do the environments around us make us feel?" I believe that is one of the most important questions today, and I would like to help answer it. It's a new topic of interest that has emerged in recent years for a few reasons. Firstly, research concludes that health and health issues are lifestyle related. The classic example is of people being thinner and more heart healthy in cities or higher density areas. Also, physical health and mental health are equally important yet so intertwined. And finally, developing sustainably will only be successful if we first consider peoples needs and desires. The built environment plays the biggest role in these three facets. 

Well being is directly affected by the built environment in these ways:

• Mood - the immediate world around us has considerable influence on our ever-changing outward and expressive moods
• Feeling - how does this place make us feel on the inside
• Stress levels and stress tolerance - a relaxing environment will help balance out high energy or stress levels
• Functionality - does the environment serve its purpose and allow you to efficiently accomplish the task at hand?
• Concentration - too many distractions can lead to a loss of focus
• Coping with mental disorders - Libby uses the example of repetitive street patterns negatively impacting people with dementia 
• Experience of pain
• Physical discomfort (body temperature) and safety from injury 
• Satisfaction with life - Libby uses the example of status of housing

The built environment affects us indirectly as well:

• Physical activity
• Social engagement and interaction, community spirit
• Biophilia - human connection to nature and other living systems
• Accessibility
• Attachment and belonging - sense of place, uniqueness
• Safety and security
• Competence and accomplishment
• Autonomy and independence
• Equality

So far, this is what we know: 

• Density encourages walking, social interaction and community engagement
• Mixed-use, medium-rise, local facilities and amenities in an irregular grid pattern are the most functional
• Greenery: as much as possible without sacrificing density
• Transition zones: there should be soft edges between public and private space to encourage social interaction 
• Housing layouts should offer a balance of communal and private space
• "Eyes on the street:" plenty of windows towards the street to foster feelings of safety
• Maximize day lighting
• Clear differentiation between public and private space
• Attractiveness of the environment

The smells and sounds of our immediate environments in cities help us gather and process information, but we are visually wired animals; almost 50 percent of our brain is involved in visual processing, 70 percent of all our sensory receptors are in our eyes, and we can get the sense of a visual scene in less than 1/10 of a second. That information forms short-term emotions that turn into lasting feelings with positive and negative impacts on our overall wellbeing. It's crucial that we carefully design our built environments for prolonged success. 


Click to see Libby Burton's Legacy Lecture

Slowing Traffic: Deutschland vs the U.S.

Vaterstetten, Germany
 

Presidio of San Francisco, CA

Evolutionary Psychology/Neuroscience & Good Feelings

I love learning about how things came to be, and how things work. Recently I've been enthralled by the human brain -- how it came to be in its current evolutionary form, how it works, along with everything new we're learning about the brain with the help of technology. One might wonder what this has to do with "urban planning/design"... I believe it has a lot to do with it. Simply put, it's possible to create and design places that appeal to us and the human condition, that can grant us health and make us feel calm, safe, and happy. This theme is nothing new to my blog, but I suppose I'm coming at it from a different angle this time by looking at the brain. 

My aunt gifted me an amazing book last year for my birthday, which is essentially what sparked my interest in connections between psychology and urban planning. Written by German neurobiologist Gerald Hüther, The Compassionate Brain: How Empathy Creates Intelligence speaks on the newest science of the human brain, written like a user's-manual. We now have a better understanding of how the brain works than ever before, and the fact that the majority of us do not use this knowledge to our advantage daily is nonsense!

While the book itself is unrelated to urban planning, it gives insight to the idea that there are certain elements in our lives, from behavior to environments, that are proven to cooperate with our brain chemistry and be beneficial to our well-being.

This post is meant to introduce these ideas and open up the conversation. And more from science, environment, health -- a Washington Post article from 2007: If It Feels Good to Be Good, It Might Only Be Natural, speaking on neuroscientific discoveries about morality having biological roots. "The more researchers learn, the more it appears that the foundation of morality is empathy." Hüther argues that compassion takes empathy one step further, as the next step in the brain's evolutionary process; compassion is a current peak in intelligence. 

These two pieces of scientific literature back me up: what is or feels "right" and "wrong" is not "'handed down' by philosophers and clergy, but 'handed up,' an outgrowth of the brain's basic propensities." Whether we know it or not, and as we struggle to determine exactly what triggers those good feelings, pleasure triggers are inherent within our brains, and we're now discovering how to get there. I would like to be part of what gets us closer to some of these answers, specifically pertaining to human connections with outside city environments!  

UPDATE!

Another blurb found on another blog:

"There might be a very good reason why it's been so damn hard to make things work the 'traditional' way. What's traditional in your culture might clash very strongly with your biological and emotional makeup."

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Sources:
The Washington Post
The Compassionate Brain, Gerald Hüther
Raptitude Blog