Role of built environment in influencing mental health

ROLE OF BUILT ENVIRONMENT IN INFLUENCING MENTAL HEALTH Swati Goel, 2018

INTRODUCTION "Architecture is a small piece of this human equation, but for those of us who practice it, we believe in its potential to make a difference, to enlighten and to enrich the human experience, to penetrate the barriers of misunderstanding and provide a beautiful context for life's drama. “

technology has evolved much more rapidly than the human psyche and a shift towards design for psychological needs is imperative. Hence, the practice of architecture needs to step-up to supplement the needs of the mind.

Through my paper, I am trying to explore the impact of architecture on people and the built environment.

A corollary to this research also explored in this paper, “Can architects address stigma against mental disorders especially in Indian societies?”

THEORIES OF THE HUMANENVIRONMENT RELATIONSHIP (Kopec) Built environment influences human psychology and altering our day to day exposures with the environment can reduce mental stresses. To further explain this conclusion, I will discuss some of the theories I investigated.

-Frank Gehry in 1989 Pritzker Prize Ceremony The built environment has a powerful impact on human minds, bodies, and well-being. The environment that surrounds us has influenced our behaviors and actions as well as the evolution of our species since the dawn of time. We are inextricably woven into the fabric of our environments in a way that we affect it as much as the environment affects us.

In the post-war years, as the discoveries in medicine moved on, the focus shifted to psychological problems. The ‘Architect’ who was once concerned with the prevention of tuberculosis became obsessed with psychological problems. The main impulse of architectural research was to prove that design can positively affect the physical and psychological health of the people. Ever since

Integration or integral theory (Gifford) Integrators are stimuli that trigger specific behaviors (Chein). According to the theory, people and the environment are separate entities that constantly interact to mold the environment to suit their needs, regardless of long-term consequences. Robert Gifford says that a combination of design features can influence people to behave and act in manners that can be influenced based on Integrators incorporated through design.

For example, the term ‘Casino’ triggers images characterized globally as flashing lights, money, gamble, clatter and people. Casino environments

(Figure 1) are equipped with built-in supports or instigators to entice people to gamble and keep them attracted to the place, making it addictive.

Figure 1 The environment in a Casino Source: http://www.builders -studio.com/portfolio/parx

Similarly, in the case of grocery stores, fruits and vegetables are located at the entrance even though these need cooling to remain fresh. This set-up stimulates people into buying unhealthy food later because they bought healthy food already.

Behavior setting theory (Figure 2) was developed by Roger Barker to explain small-scale social systems as well as the study of behavior in its natural environment. It proposes that behavior must be studied in its natural context. These could be social systems likes schools, night clubs, etc.

Most behavior settings are public environments that contain three components namely physical, social and environmental setting. Architects set a space for a specific behavior and through operant conditioning, we learn at an early age the behaviors expected of us. Therefore, different settings and situations prompt us to behave in specific manners.

For Example, Indian temples dictate a strict etiquette where followers are expected to remove their footwear outside temples. However, this Hindu tradition is also practiced at Churches in India.

Similarly, the practice to remain silent in hospitals and libraries are practiced worldwide.

Behavior setting theory (Barker)

Figure 2 Behavior setting in small scale social systems Source: www.slideshare.net/alshimaak/behavior -setting

Figure 3 Operant conditioning reinforces desired behaviors in people . Source: www.flickr.com/photos/nycstreets/9681479154

As seen in figure 3, people follow the road regulations imposed by the planning of Times Square in New York in both cases. This can be explained through operant conditioning but can be changed by the influence of design as seen here when the area is converted to pedestrian-friendly.

area, but the effect this has on the mind of the occupants is deceiving. It was referred to as “a crystal palace for visible man”, a subject for whom privacy is less important than being noticed. A feature of the Achiever’s society (Han) of the 21st century.

Architectural determinism

MENTAL HEALTH AND THE CONNECTION TO ARCHITECTURE

This concept states that behavior in an environment is caused entirely by the characteristics of the designed environment and can be adapted to any arrangement of space. In my opinion, this approach to design is debatable and takes away the natural setting of design and behaviors.

Figure 4 Ford Foundation Headquarter in New York Source: https://www.cooperhewitt.org/event/members tour-ford- foundation -11-12-2014/

An explanatory example is the Ford Foundation headquarters in New York and the inside garden; a feature implemented to keep the employees indoors. As per Drexler (Scott), architect Roche said people soon ‘acclimatized’ to the garden created inside the glass box. But the environment thus created is artificial, disconnecting people from the surroundings and enclosing them in the artificial ‘nature’ created in the courtyard of the building.

“The Outside-In building” (Scott) expresses a natural but controlled atmosphere. The effect it created was beautiful with a year-round spring inside the office

In burnout society, Han says,” Today’s society is no longer Foucault’s disciplinary world of hospitals, madhouses, prisons, barracks, and factories. It has long been replaced by another regime, namely a society of fitness studios, office towers, banks, airports, shopping malls, and genetic laboratories.

Twenty-first- century society is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an achiever’s society.”

(Han) Disciplinary society is a society of negativity which creates madmen and criminals, while the 21stcentury society is the achiever’s society. Achiever’s society is in the process of discarding negativity which creates depressives and losers. Phobias and anxiety came to be seen as the mental condition of modern life (Vidler). Also, Alain Ehrenberg in Weariness of the Self: Diagnosing the history of depression in the Contemporary age states that depression is the pathological expression of the latemodern human being’s failure to become himself.

Yet, depression also follows from increasing fragmentation and atomization of life in society. It is the pressure to achieve that is causing depression in the achiever’s society. It may be said that ‘the Achiever’s Society’ is determined by neurons.

Neurological illnesses such as depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), borderline personality disorder (BPD) and the Burnout syndrome. These are infarctions that follow from an

excess of positivity.

An architect designs for the people while keeping in mind the surroundings. However, based on the issues of the 21st-century society, the need to destress is not being met directly by architecture. The theories discussed above explore how people behave in different settings, both designed and undesigned. The challenge is to understand and address the need to design for the stressed mind.

Scientific Management and Functionalism The industrial revolution brought about Taylorism in society. It was a production efficiency methodology that breaks every action, job, or task into small and simple segments which can be easily analyzed and taught. Taylorism advanced into Scientific Management (Fig. 5), the concept of maximizing the effacement of the worker by management, implemented by Frank Gilbreth (Gainty). It started as a method of sweating more work from the laborers, which led to mechanization. This led to the loss of individuality and talent. Loss of craft led to the loss of skill; initiating an era of dependency on machines.

Like the scientific managers, the modernist architects claimed the right to organize life at the factory as well as the home (Guillén). The architect was the artist, becoming a specialist in the organization while a building was the organization of social, technical, economic and mental factors. Houses and buildings became ‘social condensers’ which would instill new social habits into their dwellers.

Scientific management proved highly effective in increasing productivity and maximizing the output.

This led to functionalism, where the roles of function, action, and consciousness were confused.

Architecture moved towards the arrangement of surfaces and cubes, and not in accordance with the needs of the user, unable to integrate material and function to achieve optimization in a functional world. Another thing that emerged out of this movement was that man was no greater than his role, which today is the satisfaction of his physical needs and desires by collaboration in the productive organization of the society (Pawley).

It was crucial that architects thought about designing for minds as well as the body’s comfort because as Reyner Banham puts it, the spatial design was shrinking. The environment bubble became a Transportable standard-of-living package, a mobile habitat, environmentally friendly, equipped by solar panels, for a hippy yet hyper-technological nomad youth.

I believe, functionalism led to a reduction in physical effort, while increasing mental stress. Ever since physical labor has been replaced by technology, and the brain is being put to more use than ever.

Technology has added many layers of comfort into human life, but this new technology-heavy lifestyle is unable to cope with the redundancies of the body.

Figure 5 Effects of Scientific management and functionalism Source: https://www.ck12.org/geometry/If-ThenStatements/lesson/If -Then-Statements-GEOM/

MENTAL HEALTH AND STIGMA IN INDIA “India is a museum of cults and customs, creeds and cultures, faiths and tongues, racial types and social systems”.

-Radha Kumud Mukherjee More than 50 million people in India suffer from a mental illness. In 2011, India recorded the highest rate of major depression in the world at 36%.

According to doctors, roughly 10% of India’s population suffers from depression. Public stigma and multidimensional poverty linked to severe mental illnesses are pervasive and intertwined.

Figure 6 Disability proportion among subjects with mental disorders (%) in India in 2016 Source (National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences)

Figure 6 maps the most prevalent mental disabilities across 10 states in India, amongst which, major depressive disorder (MDD) affects family, social and work life the most in comparison to other disorders and is also the most prevalent and ignored disorder.

MDD affects the day to day actions of the people and decreases the ability to lead a normal life which is a vicious circle of distress. It affects our family lives and social life the maximum. Qualitative analysis revealed that depressive symptoms were perceived as socially disadvantageous as these may affect marriage and social status.

According to the NMHS study, almost all mental disorders were high in the urban as well as rural

areas, which led me to believe that depression is not just a side-effect of city life, but malice. For example, in rural India, it is quite common for people to take their children to temples and faith-healers rather than hospitals and doctors; more so when the issue is related to mental health.

Not too long ago, mental health was a topic that never made it to the discussion-table; and if it needed mention, it was only spoken about, rather uncomfortably, in hushed tones. Even though people were aware of the issues, sweeping them under the rug seemed a more feasible option than seeking medical care and earning the coveted title of being ‘insane’.

Factors like social stigma, community’s belief, discrimination, rejection, self-image, family and peer pressure inhibit people from seeking timely therapeutic help.

People resort to temples and other centers of worship for a cure, which can be successful to a certain degree by bringing discipline and routine into the lives of the patients suffering from mental illnesses (R Raguram). but mostly leads to a failed system of devotion.

This approach to treatment comes from beliefs rather than a lack of design. The challenge is to explore designed environments that can alleviate the onset of common mental disorders like depression and anxiety.

Theory of Bio-realism In the 1950s, the architects had begun acting upon the need to design for the brain. The architect was now seen just as a doctor but as a shrink, the house not just a medical device for the prevention of disease but for providing psychological comfort,

what Richard Neutra called as nervous health. He developed the term bio-realism meaning the inherent and inseparable relationship between man and nature.

According to Neutra, the architect is a physiotherapist and an economist; he can certainly support vitality and health, without which each individual life and each living in togetherness becomes corrupt. (Neutra, Building with Nature)

(Neutra, Nature Near 38) In this way, he made it clear that architects must use physiological and psychological research as the tools of their trade, and they have the utmost duty to the client, not the architecture itself. He also said that “our living space should not be separated too much or too long from the green world of the organic”. He saw nature as essential to the survival of humans.

Figure 8 gives a comparison of a high-rise to a scenic landscape, stressing upon the impact of connection to greens and nature in the latter.

Figure 7 Beard House Source: (Barbara La) page 38

Neutra integrated the biological and psychological sciences into an applied architectural program, therefore distinguishing his career from other modernists. He called his original perspective ‘Biorealism’. It assumed that environments, good or bad, made an impact on the human race. It was necessary to counteract a negative environment and ensure the survival of humankind. (Neutra, Life and Human Habitat) As a scientific discipline, it ensured a verifiably healthy design.

It is interesting that Neutra referred to the architect as a guardian of humanity. He often compared architects to those in other service careers, such as clinicians, physiotherapists, psychiatrists, family practitioners, pharmacists, and scientists. “The architect must deepen and target his empathy,” he wrote, “by becoming more intimately aware of such sensory detail, imagining what his client’s experiences will be like in the setting he is creating.”

Figure 8 High rise versus living with nature

Therefore, it could be inferred that postindustrialization high-rise living takes people away from the casual, everyday society that occurs on the sidewalks, streets, gardens, and porches. It leaves people alone in their apartments. The forced isolation can then cause individual breakdowns.

BUILT ENVIRONMENT IN 21ST CENTURY Rather than improving life, multitasking, userfriendly technology, and the culture of convenience are producing disorders that range from depression to attention deficit disorder to borderline personality disorder. Byung-Chul Han interprets the spreading malaise as an inability to manage negative

experiences in an age characterized by excessive positivity and the universal availability of people and goods.

and its employees. It cultivates an energized and inspiring work environment that is relaxed but focused and buzzing with activities.

A lot of research went into its design which revealed a need for optimal working environments. The spaces are designed to be beyond functional, also focusing on the personalities, and making work fun and enjoyable. The personal net area of workspace has been reduced to gain more communal and meeting areas.

Figure 9 Diagrams for the architect's mind Source: https://www.boredpanda.com/architectual mental-illness-illustrations- archiatric-federicobabina/

Figure 9 shows the architectural representation of mental disorders in the form of a dwelling unit by artist Federico Babina, to interpret various mental states through architectural forms. These drawings depict the prejudices and negative stigmas with which pathologies of the mind are often observed.

Architecture and the spaces we live in influence our behavior and psychopathology (Babina). A dwelling houses the body, and the body houses the brain.

These diagrams question the house and in turn the health and sanity of people through architecture.

Hence the work areas are designed with a high degree of space efficiency allowing for transparency and optimal daylight, incorporating not only the practical requirements but also the emotional requirements of its employees. The research for the design was guided by a psychologist which allowed the architect to focus on the values and motivational factors of the employees as seen in figure 10.

Google Headquarters, Zurich, Switzerland Placing priority on health-centric design is taking precedence in various design interventions. Google’s office at Zurich is an interesting example of combining work with activity. Work is a major part of our lives and creating dynamic environments reduces stress and increases contentment.

Google’s EMEA Engineering Hub in Zurich, Switzerland, is a great example of modern workspace design, by being incredibly innovative, flexible and tailored for the needs and culture of the company

Figure 10 Pictures of Zurich office Source: https://www.boredpanda.com/the -best-place-towork-google-and-their-office-in- zurich/

Bharat Bhawan, Bhopal, India Another approach to address mental health is through inclusive design. Architect Charles Correa worked with design as ‘environments’. He had the

rare capacity to give physical form to something as intangible as ‘culture’ or ‘society’ – and his work is therefore critical: aesthetically, sociologically, and culturally.

“Certainly, architecture is concerned with much more than just its physical attributes. It is a many-layered thing. Beneath and beyond the strata of function and structure, materials and texture, lie the deepest and most compulsive layers of all.”

-Charles Correa

Figure 11 Plan of Bharat Bhawan Source: https://www.archdaily.com/791942/ad -classicsbharat-bhavan-charles-correa

As seen in figure 11, Bharat Bhawan’s design is rooted in the vernacular design of India using courtyard and fluid transitional spaces. It is built into a hillside which slopes down towards a lake, while a series of terraces and courtyards define the complex.

The route through the terraces encourages movement down the site’s natural gradient, with the courtyards providing spaces for rest and relaxation.

The spaces thus created are open to sky and inclusive. Bharat Bhavan is an example of modern architecture that allows every user to feel welcome in the shaded and ‘homely’ spaces thus created. The courtyards create communal public space, with the steps around their peripheries providing articulated seating for residents to meet and socialize. Through

this design, the architect was able to reconcile modernity with tradition.

India Habitat Center, New Delhi, India Architect Joseph Allen Stein worked with Richard Neutra and the design philosophy trickled down in his work in India. In this design, he brings together nature and architecture in an office-building to create harmony and health. Stein explores inclusive design by bringing elements of nature into an office complex, thus creating spaces that can welcome the community.

Figure 12 Courtyard in IHC in New Delhi Source: http://www.archiestudio.in/masters_gallery/jose ph_allen_stein

Though of an imposing nature, the building complex manages to blend in with its surroundings through its natural embellishments. In keeping with its habitat theme, the whole complex has been generously provided with natural greenery that emerges from and merges into its surroundings to provide an undiluted experience of open nature.

The architect emphasizes the importance of tangible harmony of buildings in nature. He brought grace in modern architecture by the settings of nature in which he created them. His designs in India are a great example of bio-realism and how nature can be incorporated into the design of multi-story buildings.

Ford Foundation Building, New Delhi, India (1968) Ford foundation building design by Joseph Allen Stein in New Delhi is far more modest than its counterpart in New York. Recognizing the modest nature of Mahatma Gandhi’s living style and continuing influence, Stein conceived an oasis of unpretentious structures amid grassy open spaces, placid pools, and paved walkways. It gives the feeling of informality and coming down to meet the earth. (laffsociety.org)

CONCLUSION The design of Ford Building and The India Habitat Centre by Joseph Allen Stein make a remarkable statement towards inclusive design and contribution towards creating a healthy built environment. Both designs focus on bringing nature inside while maintaining contact with its surroundings (unlike the Ford Headquarters in New York). In words of Neutra, connection to nature is imperative for mental development. Since an average human being spends 8-9 hours every day in offices, it makes a lot of difference to connect them to the environment, therefore, reducing stress.

Regular exercise is an effective way to improve mental health. It relieves stress, improves memory, helps with sleep better, and boosts overall mood.

Most importantly, it promotes all kinds of changes in the brain, including neural growth, reduced inflammation, and new activity patterns that promote feelings of calm and well-being.

Figure 13 Outdoor greens of Ford Foundation Building in Delhi Source http://www.laffsociety.org/News.asp?PostID=674

The architecture invokes the feeling of inclusivity.

Being used for official purposes, the building uses a good combination of open versus closed to counter the difficult weather in India. It is also a good example of vernacular design, a trait common to post-modern architecture in India. As seen in figure 13, the design, unlike New York, houses a garden landscape designed in a traditional Mughal style, located around the building with cascading fountains in a way that it connects to the surroundings. Both buildings were constructed at the same time but the difference in design strategies is contrasting.

Therefore, I believe that strategies, as used by Google’s Zurich office, can increase participation of the body along with the mind. It allows in bringing activity into day to day life thus reducing stress. It has been proven that the Industrial revolution added more stress on the mind while rendering the body lazy.

While we change our routines to reduce stress, we must acknowledge that people, objects, ideas are all tied by a loose string. Architects need to realize their role in society and question the things that have gone unrecognized so far. Architecture needs to be inclusive, for both body and the mind. The connect to the environment needs to be maximized not just to reduce stress, but to allow people to de-stress.

Studies show that open spaces and interaction with nature have a positive influence on mental health.

Architect’s designs need to be a combination of all

the above factors.

Melville, Herman. "Billy Budd and other stories." n.d. 1-46.

Architects have been trying different combinations at designing for the mind, but there has been no absolute solution. The problem is very subjective and complex, hence does not have a definitive solution. It needs to be researched, where people with different capabilities come together to find a solution.

National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences.

"National Mental Health Survey of India, 2015-16: Summary." National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, 2016. 2017. http://indianmhs.nimhans.ac.in/Docs/Summary.pdf>.

Neutra, Richard. "Building with Nature." n.d. 222.

Neutra, Richard. "Life and Human Habitat." n.d. 29.

Neutra, Richard. "Nature Near ." n.d. 32.

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