Today I have been reading an online PDF, a lit. review prepared for the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (Melbourne, AU), The Relationship Between the Built Environment and Wellbeing: a Literature Review, by Iain Butterworth PhD. Butterworth explains, “Built environments that promote social interaction and participation will also afford the development of social networks, social ties, social support, sense of community, community cohesion and competence, and sense of place — all seen as important determinants of community mental well-being.”
Butterworth outlines eight pieces of how the built environment informs our emotional, psychological, and physiological well-being. Butterworth writes, “The built environment provides the setting and backdrop by which we live our lives, and impacts on our senses, our emotions, participation in physical activity and community life, our sense of community, and general wellbeing.”
Environment and Health
“Places are created and shaped by those in control of resources and with certain interests, which affects our degree of access to, and the way we use, those spaces. People living in particular localities may be prone to particular diseases if the aetiology of that disease is located in the environments in which they live. … Health disadvantage is exacerbated in socially and economically disadvantaged settings.”
Understanding that our relationship to services, facilities, and venues is a part of our well-being is crucial in planning at any scale. Bathrooms in homes are rarely more than a 30 second walk from anywhere in the house, offices can be up to one minute, but public parks often do not have one at all. Distance, walkability, and transportation are all important factors in siting a “space.” Where we are determines the kinds of positive and negative environmental factors we experience, are we breathing in clean air or smog? Location, regulations, and industry are all factors.
Aesthetics of Place
“Spaces, places and buildings are more than just props in people’s lives; they are imbued with meaning and resonance, as they symbolize people’s personal histories, interpersonal relationships, and shared events in people’s extended relationships, families, communities and wider culture.”
Spaces facilitate connection, and connection facilitates diversified interactions which make our life meaningful and dynamic. Some spaces ask us to participate with them, in them, around them, others feel discouraging of this. If interpersonal relationships and shared experience are associated with well-being and happiness how can we facilitate more of this through the aesthetics (not location or clarity) of a space?
Legibility and Orientation
“Humans have a strong drive to make sense of the environment and to be involved with it. We prefer environments that afford us safety, food and shelter. We are also motivated to locate environments where our curiosity will be stimulated, whilst at the same time affording a degree of certainty.”
From a design perspective, the legibility of an environment is assisted in many ways. The design of an entrance, the height and color of signage, the use of drawing and simple imagery, and the spatial organization of the interior and exterior spaces all communicate what the space is and how it wants to be used. Unmarked buildings don’t suggests that they are welcome to random visitors, whereas museums often have many signs and banners that plead you into the space.
Built Form and Sense of Community
“Sense of community has been defined as a feeling that members have of belonging…Sense of community reflects the symbolic interaction in which people engage as they use aspects of the physical environment… sense of community has been found to be enhanced by urban planning that encourages visual coherence, diversity and attractiveness of houses and other buildings; affords sufficient privacy; ensures residents have easy access to amenities, parks, recreation facilities and a town or neighbourhood centre; offers pedestrian-friendly spaces; provides streetscapes so that houses have views of the surrounding neighbourhood; encourages open verandas and low fences in order to encourage social interaction; and restricts motor traffic.”
When talking with Lina Srivastava, she mentioned how often she found public squares to be the happiest spaces because it allowed for any kind of interaction. You could hang out in a cafe, or hangout on the benches near a fountain, or you could play a game of pic-up soccer in a more vacant corner of the square, or you could meet up with friends as an easy meeting place. Unlike a restaurant or home, a public square facilities the ability to have interpersonal connections at any age or of any socio-economic bracket.
Transport and Physical Activity
“The built environment has a direct influence on people’s wellbeing inasmuch as it encourages or inhibits physical activity…Diversity of building design and land use promotes interaction, psychological interest in and attachment to one’s surroundings, a diversity of uses of buildings and space, and thus a diverse range of people who interact in the space spaces whilst pursuing their activities.”
I thought the idea that “diversity of building design” promotes positive interactions and a connection to place that drives people to incorporate space into their activities. Perhaps the design of the walkscape of buildings could also affect how people move through space in a way that positively affects their physicality. Buildings can also intentionally foster connections with transportation, with tunnels that lead to underground transit or special drop off/pick up and bus areas.
Safety and Danger
“Satisfaction with features of the local built environment has been found to play a major role in predicting perceived neighbourhood safety…if a space is unused, then it becomes (perceived as) dangerous, because there is no one else to observe the space and the interactions that occur.”
No space is ever completely safe, but that is not the point. How do we create environments where we feel safe. I think one step is ensuring the well-being of more populations. Generally we don’t seem afraid of our neighbor but rather the unfamiliar and different, through interactions with diverse populations perhaps we can begin dissolving the fear associated with the unfamiliar.
Privacy and Crowding
“People need both privacy and social interaction…Crowding, lack of privacy and control over one’s living space may damage social relationships, incite aggression, abusive behaviour, and substance abuse.”
Sensing this probably led to the development of the open floor plan, a space where interaction can happen from multiple spaces in a larger space and where privacy can be found in “resting” space such as bathrooms and bedrooms (though not always the case).
Participation and Empowerment
“The opportunity to participate in civic life has been identified as a core human need, and essential to the psychological health of individuals and communities. Aspects of the built environment influence participation, in terms of architectural design, population density, and control over environmental stressors; the geographical and built characteristics of a particular district, place or space”
Spaces can not be designed to “make” people vote or participate in their community, but they can facilitate a place that makes people feel safe and welcome and a space where they are encouraged to participate. Butter worth explains, “To create living cities and strengthen civic identity, people need to take an active role in claiming their sense of belonging by cultivating political debate over the quality of the built environment and the culture of cities.”
Space can foster our well-being and happiness but does not define it.