Article

1. Introduction

We live in a world of unprecedented urbanization rates. With the present rapidly growing world’s population, and the current migration patterns, it has been projected that in three decades, two thirds of the global population will become city dwellers, compared to 50 percent today (UN, 2018).

Despite the positive implications of the urban growth in terms of opportunities, it presents many challenges to both human population and environment, calling for an urgent sustainability agenda.

Among the main consequences, the literature identifies congestion/high population density, inadequate housing and infrastructure, and the development of slums, where nearly 40 percent of the world’s urban expansion is projected. As a result, the human population is facing risks of increased poverty rates, poor sanitation, and unhealthy life conditions, exasperating inadequate economical differences. Furthermore, land, water, air and wildlife are affected by waste, natural resources depletion, and pollution.

On the social level, unemployment, urban crime, and other vices are already on the rise and are expected to increase even further. On the other hand, social researchers are noting that modern societies are now characterized by a weakened sense of communities and communal aspects of life (Putnam 2004). Individualism and the erosion of communal ties are adding even more challenges to the city life.

Additionally, another problem is posed, which is the ever-increasing consumption, as a result of new entrants of the middle class who acquire goods beyond their basic needs.

Looking at these consequences, there is a real challenge to meet human physical, psychological, social and environmental needs, which consequently will affect the quality of life. This threat to life satisfaction was further highlighted by the current pandemic, which has exposed our cities’ resilience and increased an awareness of our vulnerability. Cities are important determinants of future sustainability and human psychophysical health (Grimm et al., 2008). An understanding of how the built environment could determine health and wellbeing has only started to surface (Vlahhov and Galea, 2003; Krefis et al., 2018), therefore there is scarce scientific evidence which could serve as a guidance of sustainable planning and development.

The sustainability topics in urban design context are founded mainly on generally environmental and economic levels, and lack social principles. Additionally, the psychological perspective is often overlooked in urban models, which lack understanding of interactions between humans and their environments. There is an urge now to look at urban developments from a new perspective, a perspective of human-environment interactions, and new frameworks integrating interdisciplinary efforts.

In this paper, we aim at addressing this gap, stressing a role of neuroscience in informing design decisions and making a discussion on human needs in growing global urban environment less abstract, which could further advance the discussion on psycho-social sustainability.

2. Psycho-social Sustainability, Human Needs, and the Built Environment

Since the ‘Brundtland Report’ (1987), for most academics, researchers and practitioners, the concept of sustainability implies an effort to improve and sustain a system for human development that would balance all its economic, environmental, and social aspects.

In this section, we address sustainability from a different standpoint, and highlight the lack of attention towards social and psychological aspects, which are essential to the satisfaction of human needs. We aim to identify some of the elements which we see essential to guide any theoretical framework for sustainable urban design.

2.1. Psychosocial sustainability and Human Needs

Two sustainability definitions found through a literature review focus on the achievement of human full potential throughout the process.

1. “A dynamic equilibrium in the process of ecological interaction between the population and its environment such that the population develops to express its full potential, satisfies needs and wants but without depleting productive resources” (Ben-Eli, 2015), (Thomas, 2015).
2. “A possibility that human and other forms of life on earth will flourish forever” (Ehrenfeld, 2008).

Ben-Ali and Thomas draw on satisfaction of needs to achieve full human potential, while Ehrenfeld outlines a required process of transformation of human behavior to overcome the current challenges, on both individual and collective levels, and achieve a state of flourishing. We believe that these definitions introduce psycho-social aspects of sustainability, which were lacking in the initial sustainable development discourse. We agree that sustainability is a mindset, and it is about “being” mode of human existence rather than the unsustainable “having” mode we cling to now. 

Detailed discussion on human needs is beyond the scope of this article, however, some of the psychological needs could be highlighted. Kasser (2009), for instance, has framed four needs as vital for individuals’ flourishing and well-being (Kasser et al, 2001): safety; sense of security; feeling of competence and efficacy; sense of connection with others; and freedom and autonomy. Some of these needs overlap the ones initially identified by Maslow (1954) in his hierarchy of needs.

On one hand, the lack of fulfillment of human needs impedes wellbeing; on the other, ecological degradation caused by human urges can hinder the satisfaction of one’s needs, affecting their well-being negatively. Environments which are sustainable from ecological point of view and where pro-environmental behaviors are promoted, add to overall satisfaction and improve human well-being.

The discussion on psychological dimensions of sustainable development has not joined the discourse on sustainable development from the start, which is surprising since all aspects of sustainability relate to human behavior, and the provided solutions are about changing human attitudes, values, that is cognitive frames (Psycho-social bases of sustainable development, 2017). Currently, psychological aspects of sustainability have been gaining more attention. On one hand, proposed theories indicate the link between fulfillment of one’s needs and ecological sustainability (Maslow, 1954; Deci & Ryan, 2000; Kasser, 2002;), as suggested above. On the other, some theories stress the importance of the transition from egocentric towards altruistic mindframe (Di Fabio, 2018). 

Similarly, social aspects of sustainability have been neglected and that is reflected by the lack of consensus on definitions, criteria and measurements (Manzi et al., 2010; Bostrom, 2012; Laguna, 2014). 

Social environment has been vaguely defined as “the environment that influences an individual’s behaviour through promoting a sense of social control through the creation of social norms” (US Institute of Medicine, 2003). McNeill and Subramanian (2006) propose to classify social environment based on five dimensions: (1) social support, (2) socioeconomic status, (3) racial discrimination, (4) social cohesion and (5) social capital and neighbourhood deprivation (McNeill and Subramanian, 2006). All of these dimensions are critical to achieving a sustainable community status. Some scholars (Littig et al., 2005; King et al., 2008) propose that social dimension of sustainability, similarly to psychological one, is linked to fulfillment of human needs and assuring resources for future generations. 

This shift towards psycho-social dimensions of sustainability has been also reflected by a recent focus on a promotion (enrichment, growth, and adaptability), that are actions which are beyond traditional definition of sustainability, where focus was on avoidance (exploitation, depletion, and irreversible alteration).

2.2. The Built-environment and Self-actualization

Space often determines fulfilment of human needs or its lack. Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, mentioned above, has been used as a framework in this respect by many scholars and researchers, who attempted to translate them into the built environment context (Raeisi et al., 2010; Mehan and Soflaei, 2017). However, it has been previously stressed that both the built environment and human behavior play a role in the satisfaction of psychological needs (Kasser, 2009). 

Sarah William Goldhagen (2017) highlights how living in unhealthy and cognitively dulling habitats can impact opportunities of social advancement and self-actualization. For instance, she considers that attending schools in buildings can undermine attention, motivation, and effective learning. In her critic to developments in under-privileged areas, the American author states:

“Every day, millions of people fail to find comfortable, inviting, well-designed streetscapes, buildings, parks, and plazas where they can simply escape the stress of daily life or share the easy company of others. (…) The world is literally littered with places that were built on the cheap and violate practically everything we know about what makes salutary, enriching environments”.

Goldhagen farther proposes that enriched environments present opportunities for growth, resilience, and flexible problem solving, which are essential to face the world’s current hardships.

“Enriched environments, whether attention-focusing or attention-restoring, whether awe-inspiring, de-familiarizing, or plainly comforting, will always be the habitats best suited to the human project of personal, familial, and communal well-being and self-actualization, and accomplishment”.

2.3. Passivity of the Current Urban Models

The current urban sustainable models, often informed by modernism and post-modernism and oriented towards functionality and innovative construction technologies, provide solutions oriented in the direction of physical and environmental aspects but they lack a systematic understanding of human-environment interactions, including cognitive and behavioral aspects, and cause people to become only “disembodied human observers” (Mallgrave, 2011).

Such passive approach doesn’t aid the design of engaging enriched environments in which people learn and grow and where behavioral transformation towards psycho-ecological sustainability could happen (Kiverstein and Miller, 2015). Models informed by other scientific disciplines shedding light on the nature of the interaction between the human organism and the environment become an urgent matter.

3. Can Neuroscience Inform Design?

As established in the above section, the urban contexts are rich in opportunities to shape human behavior.

In this section, we stress the importance of understanding relationships between the human organism and the environment, drawing inspirations from neuroscience and behavioral sciences, and highlighting how new emerging disciplines can be a major source of information for architectural and urban design practices.

3.1. Human Environment Interaction, Embodiment

The paradigm of embodiment, connecting cognitive processes with the body, is relatively new and has been adopted by the most recent generation of cognitive neuroscientists. A radical approach to embodied cognitive sciences calls for new conceptual methods and tools which could foster understanding how cognition depends on body and environment (Kiverstein and Miller, 2015). 

The paradigm of embodiment holds that an agent’s cognition is shaped by the body. In a proposal for an ‘enactive approach to cognition’, Varela, Thomson and Rosch (1992) defined ‘embodied’ as:

“By using the term embodied we mean to highlight two points: first that cognition depends upon the kinds of experience that come from having a body with various sensorimotor capacities, and second, that these individual sensorimotor capacities are themselves embedded in a more encompassing biological, psychological and cultural context.”

3.2. Embodied Cognition and Urban models

Societal functions have informed urban planning, however, the relations between people and urban form have been often set arbitrarily and defined as a mere set of categories, i.e. housing, transportation (Marcus et al, 2016).

Recent knowledge developments in cognitive and behavioural sciences could inform psycho-social dimensions of urban design, advancing sustainable development, however they demand a systemic understanding of urban space, that is:

1. understanding an interplay and interdependence of urban areas or places
2. inclusion of participatory design practices, which could balance top-down approach to making decisions
3. acknowledging that advancing psycho-social sustainability requires understanding human motivation, behaviour, and interactions between embodied humans and their environment.

3.3. Gibsonian Affordances and Ecological Perception

James Gibson is known for creating ‘affordances, defined as possibilities for action provided by environmental features. His work on ecological perception could be classified as ‘embodied cognition’, a discussed above umbrella term for many directions which stress the relevance of the body in a process of perception, essential for human experience and consciousness.

Unfortunately, in spite of the common reference to his concept of affordances, Gibson’s theories remain rather unnoticed by urbanists (Marcus et al., 2015). According to Gibson (1979):

“Every animal […] is a perceiver of the environment and a behavior in the environment. But this is not to say that it perceives the world of physics or that it behaves in the space and time of physics” (Ibid., p. 8). Our tendency to speak about the environment as the physical world and, as a consequence, the risk of uncritically adopting a conception of the environment according to the discipline of physics, is here addressed at its fundamental. In contrast to this conception he states the rather obvious fact that from the point of view of psychology: “we are concerned here with things at the ecological level, with the habitat of animals and men”.

It is worth stressing that affordances are not purely conceptual. Human sensorimotor abilities depend on the whole body, and not just parts of the nervous system (Robbins and Aydede, 2009). 

3.4. Neuroscience-informed design

Until recently, very few disciplines analyzed relationships between human experience and behavior, and various aspects of the physical surroundings, environmental psychology is one of them. There have been new emerging neuroscience-informed disciplines, applicable to architecture and urban design. 

We argue that the misalignment between urban contexts, and human needs and behavior could be filled by integration of insights emerging from these new disciplines, which could provide in depth knowledge on the impact of spatial qualities on human cognition, emotions and behavior. 

On the philosophical ground, the notion of ‘enactivism’ could guide studies of interactions between the organism and the built environment.

Furthermore, novel models of neuro-aesthetic and architectural experience stress the role of three main systems engaged in such an experience: knowledge (previous experience), emotions, and sensorimotor system, which belong to the domain of the body. The interplay of all these systems affect the mental state of the individual and further lead to behavioral change (Coburn et al., 2017). Whereas knowledge and emotions depend on the individual, sensorimotor input can be controlled.

3.5. Examples of application

3.5.1. Space Syntax

Space Syntax comprises an array of methods which enable analysis of cities. It is created on a premise that all urban settlements have required conditions needed in order to scale cognition from individual level to the level of community.

Space syntax theory, an approach developed in the 1970s and 1980s by Bill Hillier and his colleagues, entails studies of social dimension otherwise overlooked in many urban theories (Karimi, 2018). Moreover, this theory investigates how various configurations of space affect human perception, cognition and movement. Cognitive aspects studied by space syntax theory encompass three dimensions (Penn, 2020):

1. Intelligibility, that is how space can become comprehensive to humans,
2. Cognitive representations,
3. Embodiment

London’s South Bank is an example of the project realised by ‘Space Syntax Lab’ according to space syntax principles. South Bank is an area of London, hosting some of the world’s leading cultural facilities, and frequented by residents, professionals, tourists, music and museum-goers, commuters (due to proximity of important transport nodes). The lab researched why space was performing poorly and understood that it was due to its circulation system. Various people were directed on different routes, which resulted in many areas being left. Their recommendation was to integrate the various user groups by providing new direct ways and to add new attractions and significant public spaces, which would be perceived as orientation points.

• Urban Realities Laboratory (University of Waterloo)

Colin Ellard, a prominent professor of cognitive neuroscience at University of Waterloo, conducts experiment on how people perceive urban settings and measures how our brains and bodies respond to different kinds of settings. His research focuses on topics such as wayfinding, cognition, and emotion in the built environment (Ellard & Shaughnessy, 2003; Valtchanoy and Ellard, 2015; Ellard et al., 2010). 

Ellard (2018) writes:

“…what is perhaps most important to get right in a city is a constellation of elements that promote positive emotion. (…) It helps to break down the loneliness that is epidemic in big cities, builds resilience to challenge and social solidarity in its citizenry. Such effects can be obtained by providing the affordances or opportunities for positive social interactions, and this can be done effectively through prudent application of psychological principles to urban design”.

Ellard (2014) proposes that any enhancement to cities should start from observation and measurements, in order to build a grounded view on the relationship between the physical aspects of city design, and its phenomenological ones. As Ellard stresses the set of tools have changed dramatically and it enables going beyond simple observations of ‘the overt behavior’ of city inhabitants. Measurements which provide researchers with details of human reactions towards events or physical features pf urban environments, are performed through sensors which could measure gaze, heart rates, brainwaves, state of the autonomic nervous system, paired with phones with specially designed apps, which can also record people’s location and movement.

In one such study, conducted as a part of the travelling BMW-Guggenheim Laboratory, researchers demonstrated that views of green space not only affected levels of happiness but triggered strong relaxation responses, thus altered human physiology. As Ellard highlights, such findings could become potent argumentation for whoever advocates for the importance of presence of nature in dense cities (Ellard, 2014).

• The Centric Lab

The Centric Lab is another example of an organization and neuroscience research lab creating tools and strategies aiding organizations to build long term systems based on health resilience for people and improvement of public health. Through understanding how the environment plays a key role in disease pathology, Centric Lab works to help rehabilitate people through better urban policy and public health strategies that support our health. Future Cities Catapult, which is an outcome of the UK based partnership between government, industry and academia, sponsored the ‘Neuroscience for Cities Playbook’ issued by the Centric Lab. As the Lab founders and researchers state, in twenty years’ time it will be unthinkable to plan cities without insights coming from neuroscientific research (Camargo et al., 2018).

4.Conclusions

We are aware of at least 3 fields focused around neuroscience research, which aim at eliciting the nature of our interactions with the environment. These are: neuro-architecture, neuro-urbanism and environmental neuroscience. All of them investigate the relations between the human brain and body, and various aspects of the environment. In the long run, the research findings from these fields could inform urban design frameworks and health policies.

However, as proposed by Pykett et al. (2020), many scholars and researchers think that the idea of quantifying human experience is a reductionism, overriding philosophical traditions of defining a good life, hence healthy skepticism that proposes to be able to engineer the ideal urban conditions for happiness needs to be maintained.

We support the idea that design should be informed by science and that science can shift the traditional efficiency metrics that we currently use to evaluate spaces, to metrics focused on the human experience. A good example of such approach is Human Metrics Labat Hume, science-informed architecture and urban design studio.

Designing and planning the built environment is a sum of many considerations. However, we agree with the notion proposed by Sussman and Hollander (2015) that today’s practitioners shaping cities can no longer rely on matters of taste or utilitarianism, and design should be grounded in our neurobiology and psychology, in order to become truly sustainable.