
The hidden ways that architecture affects the way you feel - pmcpinto
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170605-the-psychology-behind-your-citys-design
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21
> Another VR study, published this year, concluded that most people feel
> better in rooms with curved edges and rounded contours than in sharp-edged
> rectangular rooms – though (tellingly perhaps) the design students among the
> participants preferred the opposite.

I always wondered why rooms tend to be rectangular pretty much all over the
world. Googling for that suggests that it's a price thing, but I'm not
convinced, since expensive homes still seem to prefer rectangular rooms.

Even contemporary buildings, with extremely weird and non-uniform facades,
still tend to be grid-based on the inside.

I would be really interested if this preference study was also done in the
real world, not just in VR.

Another related universal thing, why do we sleep with the head towards the
wall (as opposed to the center of the room). Googling suggests a deep security
measure, since the wall prevents attacks from behind you, which are the
hardest to defend against.

Feng-shui deals with these kind of issues, if you move beyond the
superstitious layer (have a turtle for money, ...)

By reading feng-shui books I learned to get a bit more intune with my inner
feelings (the chi/qi), so now, if I sit in a room with no apparent exit, or
with a cluttered path to the exit, I can pin point the insecurity feelings
emanating from my subconscious.

~~~
d-sc
I work for an apartment development company. To build round walls would be
prohibitively expensive and impractical. Every part of your pipeline from
building materials to tools to furniture is designed for linear-walled rooms.

~~~
nieksand
Furniture is definitely an issue.

When I was in Singapore in the early 90s, I remember my family looking at a
rental unit in the Draycott towers. It was super cool looking, but lack of
places for furniture to go is what nixed it.

For the curious... exterior and interior:

[https://www.singaporeexpats.com/singapore-property-
pictures/...](https://www.singaporeexpats.com/singapore-property-
pictures/properties/draycott-tower/01draycott-tower.jpg)

[http://draycott.weebly.com/uploads/1/7/5/5/1755412/3811624.j...](http://draycott.weebly.com/uploads/1/7/5/5/1755412/3811624.jpg?600x424)

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ProfessorLayton
I agree in regards to intricate façades, which I tend to find beautiful and
inspiring, particularly Beaux Arts style. I'm actually a bit bummed that
small, intricate details seem to have gone out of fashion in today's
architecture. Some newer buildings may be interesting at the macro-level, but
still feel lacking when it comes to small details.

I also feel that way about residential architecture, where intricate façades
seem to have faded away in newer homes. Even grotesque McMansions feel
comparatively tame in comparison to say, an Edwardian or Brownstone style
home.

Pointing cost as a reason made sense back then, but now feels
counterintuitive, as we have so many more materials and ways to mass produce
intricate details today that we did back then - 3D printing, CNC, etc. - I
don't see why a Victorian style neighborhood couldn't be built today without
the intensive labor costs it used to take to make those details that make
those homes so beautiful.

~~~
chrismealy
I'm with you. I've thought a lot about how technology could be used to
increase the amount of detail in architecture (rather than decrease it), but
I'm not a designer, and my daydreams never go anywhere (I think you just can't
beat old brownstones and 17th century Dutch houses. They're not even that
ornate, but the quality of materials were high). New construction in my city
looks like cardboard boxes taped together, and that's for a $1,000,000 house.

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carsongross
_If the façade is complex and interesting, it affects people in a positive
way; negatively if it is simple and monotonous_

Humans prefer humanistic architecture, with fractal visual complexity and
natural materials. Modernism tossed it all out, then the post modernists
recognized that that was a horrible mistake, but decided it was too uncool to
just go back to what people actually liked.

If you are interested in a short US-centric read on how the whole thing went
down, read this:

[https://www.amazon.com/Bauhaus-Our-House-Tom-
Wolfe/dp/031242...](https://www.amazon.com/Bauhaus-Our-House-Tom-
Wolfe/dp/0312429142)

Post WW2 architects have a lot of human unhappiness to answer for.

~~~
chrismealy
Not an architecture expert, so maybe somebody can help me out, but the early
modern architecture was often still complex and humane (I'm thinking 1930s -
Amsterdam School and WPA post offices). Only later did modernism become an
excuse for big, cheap, and ugly.

~~~
clock_tower
Modernism -- i.e., the Bauhaus, the International Style, and Le Corbusier --
was always about big, cheap, and ugly. The Amsterdam School was Expressionist,
not Modernist; and nothing's more anti-Modernist than a pretty painting on a
wall, even if it's in a visually arresting 1930s style.

But that said, the Amsterdam School and the WPA work were beautiful, and I'd
never heard of them before. Thank you for mentioning them! I'll be sure to
look into both in a lot more detail.

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okreallywtf
My first few thoughts on reading this:

1\. Cool, I've always wondered the same thing whenever I visit DC. I wonder
what it would be like to walk to/from work with big, grand architecture all
around and if it would change my mindset if I saw it every day, it certainly
does when I visit.

2\. While its interesting to consider, this feels like an optimization for a
system we don't even have working yet. There are so many ills to deal with in
our societies that I feel like its not something that is worth spending much
public time or effort on (research it all you want by all means). I hate to
feel that way because when people deride NASA/space research/pure research it
frustrates me because they aren't mutually exclusive with solving earth
problems (fix our planet before we try to go to mars!), but I can't help but
feel like this could mostly improve life for people who are already living
pretty good too. I'm conflicted about actually putting this into practice.

~~~
clock_tower
On your second point, the poor suffer from Modernist architecture. The
projects actively bred crime, by encouraging isolation and demoralization --
Pruitt-Igoe was actually dynamited, and its inhabitants were much more
peaceful and civilized after they were moved to normal housing. (And they'd
been much more peaceful and civilized before being moved into Pruitt-Igoe,
too.)

The rich, and the prosperous upper-middle class, can live where they like and
enjoy traditional architecture (look up New Traditional construction), but
ordinary people are stuck with ordinary buildings, which are awful under a
Modernist regime -- or under our current Postmodernist regime of cheap pull-up
sheds adorned with ticky-tacky.

~~~
okreallywtf
Interesting, do you think modernist architecture itself breeds problems or do
you think the economic conditions bred the crime? I get the feeling that the
architecture was used in some cases specifically to group together people that
they wanted to get away from the upper and/or middle classes and consolidate
together, but I wonder how much of that can be attributed to the actual
architecture itself. I don't feel like we can know that until we have a more
equal society or at least one where straight poverty isn't as much of an
issue.

~~~
clock_tower
I really do blame the architecture, not the economic conditions, which were
more or less constant before, during, and after Pruitt-Igoe. (And I certainly
don't blame race, which was also constant before, during, and after Pruitt-
Igoe...)

From Wikipedia
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruitt%E2%80%93Igoe)),
Pruitt-Igoe was a slum-clearance project, intended to provide more hygienic,
healthier, cleaner, less crowded, and generally better living conditions for
people who were already living in the area. The hope was that it would
integrate its inhabitants better into the economy, and help everyone living
there -- both black and white -- to get ahead in life. The project was
actually really well racially integrated for 1950s Missouri: blacks lived in
buildings named for Pruitt (a black ace pilot in WWII), whites in buildings
named for Igoe (a white Congresscritter), but they were all in the same
vicinity. Presumably this reflected the composition of the slums Pruitt-Igoe
was replacing, since the inhabitants of the old neighborhood (called DeSoto-
Carr) were moved into Pruitt-Igoe as the old buildings were torn down. (No
need to pity them for being expropriated: the inhabitants didn't own the
buildings, and slumlords don't deserve much sympathy.)

And, strikingly enough, the initial design for the neighborhood would have
been a success. High rises aren't the Devil when they're integrated into the
urban fabric (otherwise present-day Manhattan would be a nightmare); Pruitt-
Igoe was meant to be a mix of high-rises, mid-rises, and two- to four-storey
walk-ups, until cost cutting came into play and they ended up with towers in a
park.

Since the same people had the same economic conditions before, during, and
after Pruitt-Igoe, and since they committed more crimes during Pruitt-Igoe
than before or after, I think it's fair to say that the architecture, not the
economic conditions, was at fault.

~~~
sitkack
I have a similar theory that bad posture causes depression.

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rm_-rf_slash
Ithaca, NY, may not have the most remarkable architecture, but I am always
amazed at how beautiful the city looks from the hilltops.

Crucially, there are few buildings above two stories in the many blocks
between the downtown area and the south shores of Cayuga Lake. There are so
many trees in between that one could be forgiven for thinking that a major
section of the city is little more than a forest or a densely wooded park,
when viewed from above.

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Domenic_S
The UC Davis "Death Star" [0] is one of those buildings, it was meant to
encourage human interaction but ends up just building dread. Terrible
building.

[https://localwiki.org/davis/Social_Sciences_and_Humanities_B...](https://localwiki.org/davis/Social_Sciences_and_Humanities_Building)

~~~
labster
I'm actually a fan of the Death Star. For me, it was one of those places where
you could turn a corner and get a completely different perspective. And it was
decently fun to LARP in. I was in the sciences so I never spent much time
there, but I like the uniqueness of the building. I just wish it was a little
more unique, using other colors and textures than plain gray concrete.

------
gt_
Anyone interested in this subject matter would be smart to consult Gaston
Bachelard's seminal work 'Poetics of Space'

For anyone creating in VR, this book should be required reading. But, I
haven't heard anyone working in VR acknowledge it. My background is in art,
and I have held this book as just short of sacred throughout my practice.

------
soared
Mentioned at the end of the article is desire path and of course there is an
active subreddit with tons of awesome pictures:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/DesirePath/top/?sort=top&t=all](https://www.reddit.com/r/DesirePath/top/?sort=top&t=all)

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skilesare
One should read The Nature of Order by Chris Alexander and / or The Timeless
Way of Building

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sutee
Am I the only one who read the article in the voice of Roman Mars?

~~~
sogen
I read your comment in his voice

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Chris_Newton
I’ve been reading a book called _The Edifice Complex_ by Deyan Sudjic that is
related to this idea. I’m only part way through, but it’s already provided
some fascinating examples of how very powerful individuals have used
architecture, often to an extreme degree, to intimidate and to project
authority when others have come to visit them.

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chrismealy
"Happy City" (mentioned in the article) is a terrific book, and surprisingly
down-to-earth.

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soared
I'm tempted to send this to my boss in support of redesigning our 90s-esque
cubicle farm.

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spraak
This is why earth buildings can be so healing psychologically.

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tpeo
So, what I'm reading is: "Architects to phase in eye-candy as they find out
bare walls to be unedifying".

Is this an overly cynical reading of the article?

~~~
clock_tower
Bare walls plus eye candy just gives you Postmodernism, which isn't much of an
improvement over Modernism. The goal is to build genuinely smaller buildings,
or buildings with a wider range of uses. (Think of how the Empire State
Building has shops on the first few floors and offices above, and its stepped-
back construction lets it blend in with more standard six-storey facades.)

~~~
tpeo
Diverse urban landscapes is something that I can get behind, but the issue (as
I see it) is that there's something else at play here. Mixed-use, for
instance, is already well justified as an urban policy by contemporary urban
economics. Designing streets in such a way that they're easier to navigate is
something that is already well motivated by contemporary behavioral agent-
based modelling of urban landscapes (besides being an idea which is probably
as old as urban planning itself).

It's the idea of some immediate psychological response to the environment like
that of the stress level of a passerby to a facade that bothers me, because it
reminds me too much of stuff which IMO hasn't been particularly useful in
urban planning, such as the broken windows theory. There's no immediate
inference that can be made from the immediate psychological response of a
passerby to the behavioral response of a urban population to the same
environment over long periods of time. There plenty of neighborhoods in this
world that might _look_ like shit but which aren't actually shit, and most
often neither do the plainer houses in a given neighborhood house people any
worse than their neighbors. But in so far as lots of money might be wasted
trying to "solve" these issues, the whole idea to me sounds to me like a
massive red herring.

~~~
clock_tower
Massive blank facades, of the sort that this study condemns, can't occur in a
diverse, mixed-use urban landscape; so I think this study has gotten to the
right answer.

Still, I see your point: are they getting to the right answer in the right
way? I like the idea of breaking up blank facades, but I agree with your point
that an area can look ugly or frightening to an outsider but fairly pleasant
to a local -- and that if this way of doing things grows beyond the blank-
facades question, it could become a serious problem.

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Hermel
American buildings always feel a little odd to me. My guess is that this is
related to them using feet and inches and not the metric system.

~~~
taeric
I'm not sure I understand your assertion here. How would unit of measure make
a difference to the feel?

And, I'm assuming this same oddness of feel extends to older buildings pretty
much everywhere?

~~~
jerryr
I think they're suggesting a subconscious perception of the subtle differences
in sizes that result from building with round numbers in metric vs imperial
(e.g. 1 meter is different than 3 feet). This is interesting, but seems less
likely than the more dramatic differences in architectural styles, materials,
regulations, and zoning.

~~~
matthewmcg
Paper sizes might be a better example of this since the only difference is the
dimensions. Something about the relative dimensions of A4 paper just looks
nicer to me.

(I know the ISO sizes are based on the golden ratio, but I think this probably
has more to do with me being a lawyer practicing in the United States.
PerhapsUS-Letter and Legal sizes subconsciously read as "work" to me and A4
reads as exotic.)

~~~
kps

      > the ISO sizes are based on the golden ratio
    

No, 1:√2. (A golden rectangle divides into a golden rectangle plus a square;
an ISO rectangle divides into two ISO rectangles.)

