This building feels so depressing! You may not be the only one who feels this way...

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We often say, "This building makes people feel so depressed." Architectural form does have an impact on people's mental health. As early as 2009, researchers from the University of Amsterdam published an academic article pointing out that urban residents are 21% more likely to suffer from anxiety and 39% more likely to suffer from emotional disorders. In addition, people who grew up in cities are twice as likely to suffer from split personality as their rural peers, and the cause is the urban living environment.

Architecture is an important element of the urban living environment, but for a long time, architects seem to have intentionally or unintentionally ignored the impact of architecture on people's psychological and mental health. In addition to a high level of biophilic design, a good building should also meet the needs of social interaction between people in the living space. However, the kind of meaningful social interaction that is crucial to people's mental health is not easy to happen in the city.

Have you ever felt that certain spaces made you feel uneasy or anxious? Perhaps it was a noisy, crowded shopping mall with flashing neon signs, intricate tile patterns, and the signature colors of chain stores decorating the walls. Or maybe it was a dim work parking lot with flickering fluorescent lights, low ceilings, and hard concrete floors that made your every step echo.

© Blender Artists

In stark contrast are the spaces where you feel at ease. It could be at the table in a friend’s kitchen, with sunlight streaming through the windows and warming your skin, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee filling the air, and the first hints of color from the new sprouts in the potted plants on the windowsill. Or it could be your favorite quiet area at the local library, with high ceilings, lots of natural light, and views of the courtyard garden.

© Jacques Cronje Timber Design

Many of us can relate to the difference that different built environments make us feel. Yet what this means for our health and well-being is less well-researched. How do the offices, homes, hospitals, schools, communities and other spaces we inhabit every day affect our health? Traditionally, our understanding of how building design affects the human body has focused on the spread of infectious diseases. For example, post-war urban renewal of old tenements in the UK was designed to address overcrowded, damp and poorly ventilated housing conditions, which were associated with high rates of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. However, the impact of the built environment on health may be far more profound than this.

The rise of neuroarchitecture

Neuroarchitecture is an emerging interdisciplinary field that explores how the built environment affects human brain function, behavior, cognition, and psychology. Preliminary research suggests that [1], in addition to its impact on infectious diseases, architectural design and form may directly increase stress levels in the body, which in turn may increase the risk of certain non-communicable diseases (often referred to as "lifestyle diseases"), including neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, depression, and anxiety.

© Laurent Kronental

A deeper understanding of how the built environment affects health in these ways could revolutionize building design and urban planning. Imagine if we could design spaces that not only don’t harm health, but actually promote overall well-being? In a sense, this emerging field confirms what we have long intuited: that architecture is not just the backdrop to our lives, but an important determinant of the quality of our lives.

Rapid urbanization makes this research even more urgent. The United Nations estimates that by 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities. In developed countries, people already spend most of their time indoors. Some vulnerable groups in Europe, such as the elderly, infants and young children, and those with weakened immune systems, spend almost all of their time indoors. These numbers are likely to increase due to extreme and increasingly unpredictable weather caused by climate change[2].

© Escape Trailer

Meanwhile, neuroarchitectural research is revealing how even small changes in building and urban design can have an impact.[3] For example, rooms with low ceilings and small windows can increase the body’s stress response.[4] Yet those loft apartments pictured in real estate magazines, with their high ceilings, large windows, abundant natural light, and wooden floors, may actually be the ideal home environment to help reduce physical stress.

Subtle influence of architectural details

Similarly, certain high-contrast visual patterns in buildings, such as striped exterior walls, acoustic panels, and carpeting, can cause visual discomfort[5] and, in extreme cases, lead to migraines or epilepsy in individuals prone to seizures[6]. For example, many hotel and cinema corridors and lobbies use complex, high-contrast patterned carpeting, intended to conceal stains and wear, while in facilities such as casinos, such patterns are even designed to deliberately confuse and impair decision-making.

© Alibaba

Additionally, the use of striped facades is becoming more common in modern buildings. Once you notice this striped facade decoration, you will find it everywhere. However, these structures arranged in repetitive, high-contrast patterns often feel visually oppressive. At the other extreme, visually monotonous environments can also have a negative impact on people. Such spaces lack variation in windows and doors and lack unique features or details, which is a highly minimalist or functional aesthetic common in some contemporary buildings. For example, the architectural landscapes of many commercial districts in the United States and Canada look almost interchangeable. In many cases, it is difficult to distinguish one city from another. This phenomenon is particularly evident in newly built townhouses, shopping malls and retail centers. These environments often lead to increased stress levels because they fail to stimulate our senses. In contrast, environments with diverse design elements and unique features, such as streetscapes like London's Camden Passage, help reduce stress and promote physical and mental health by providing psychological stimulation and points of interest.

© Laurent Kronental

New insights are emerging from neuroimmunology (the study of the interaction between the immune and nervous systems). This suggests that a particularly worrisome consequence of chronic stress is inflammation in the brain. Neuroinflammation has been linked to a variety of neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders, including depression, Alzheimer’s disease, and schizophrenia. Furthermore, neuroinflammatory diseases appear to be more common in urban areas, which may be related to factors such as pollution, reduced social cohesion, and the increased stress of urban living.[7] However, the known associations between building design and stress, and the link between stress and neuroinflammation, raise an overlooked question: is poor building design also contributing to the development of neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders?

© Management Today

You might think that being in a stressful built environment isn’t a big deal. But be aware that research has shown[8] that certain architectural features, such as room size, wall shape, and window layout, can induce stress without us even realizing it. Furthermore, we often spend a lot of time in places with spatial stressors, such as offices, homes, or schools, and this constant exposure may gradually affect our psychological and neurophysiological health.

© Reddit

Dissecting the relationship between architecture and neuroinflammation

To further explore this question, a team of researchers at the University of Cambridge is studying the impact of architecture on neuroinflammation. We recently conducted a pilot study to explore how buildings with different architectural features affect markers of stress-related inflammation in the brain. Specifically, we investigated the impact of “biophilic design” – the incorporation of natural elements into building design, such as plants and natural light. In the experiment, participants viewed images of two different high-rise buildings for nine minutes each. The first building (represented via photorealistic images) was a design planned for development in Montreal, Canada, and exhibited moderate biophilic design features, including fractal patterns (multi-scale repeating patterns found in nature), organic building materials (such as wood), a high degree of visual complexity, and greenery, such as on balconies. The second building, a building completed in The Hague, Netherlands in 2011, was less biophilic and lacked fractal patterns, greenery, and organic building materials, although its height, color, and design details were similar to the first building (shown below).

© Studio Pecht

While participants viewed both types of buildings, we measured their electrical brain activity via electroencephalography (EEG). This non-invasive method is achieved by wearing a head cap with electrodes. We used an innovative technique to compare participants’ EEG activity with historical data showing correlations between blood markers of inflammation and EEG recordings to infer signs of acute brain inflammation. The study found that participants had lower levels of brain inflammation when they were exposed to buildings with higher biophilic design. This provides preliminary evidence that incorporating more natural elements into building design may help reduce brain inflammation and expands our current understanding of its stress-reducing benefits. From an evolutionary perspective, this result makes sense: humans evolved in natural environments, so we are attracted to the natural environments where our ancestors lived and are healthier and less stressed in these environments. If further research supports our findings, it means that increasing natural light, incorporating green spaces, and designing spaces that encourage social interaction may help mitigate the negative effects of urban living on neurological health.

© Gail Albert-Halaban

What does this mean for the design of everyday spaces? In schools, for example, it’s easy to identify obvious risks like overcrowded, damp, poorly ventilated classrooms, or hazardous materials like asbestos. But we often overlook the hidden impacts on neurophysiological health. For example, how might poor natural lighting and visual stress caused by flickering fluorescent lights affect students, especially those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? What long-term effects might classrooms with low ceilings, a lack of natural light, and other biophilic features have? These questions are currently unanswered, but they are critical to ensuring children’s health, well-being, and optimal long-term learning outcomes. The same concerns apply to hospitals, workplaces, and many other spaces.

Emerging research linking architectural design to neurological health marks an important shift in our understanding of public health. We design our world, and it shapes us. The built environment we encounter every day is not a passive element, but an active factor that can inhibit or enhance our neurological state and overall health.

References:

[1]www.frontiersin.org/journals/computer-science/articles/10.3389/fcomp.2023.1237531/full[2]www.scie ncedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412015300507[3]www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/9/5637[4]www.scienced irect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494422000470[5]visualstress.info/2016-238.pdf[6]arrow.tudubli n.ie/sdar/vol6/iss1/5/[7]pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4774049/[8]www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/4305

Text/Cleo Valentine, Heather Mitcheltree

Translated by gross

Proofreading/tim

Original article/psyche.co/ideas/how-the-buildings-you-occupy-might-be-affecting-your-brain

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