People who live in cities are more likely to contract diseases. An effect that could be amplified if the cities in question are ugly.
Soon a link established between ugly city and poor health? The University of Cambridge is conducting a study to assess whether certain building facades can cause neuroinflammation, a pathological mechanism common to several brain diseases. It seeks to establish a direct link between the appearance of a building and a psychological reaction.
Living in a city, whether beautiful or not, has negative consequences on the inhabitants. People who grew up in a dense urban environment (in a city of 50,000 inhabitants for example) are more likely to suffer from schizophrenia as adults than people who grew up in a less dense urban environment, a study has already explained. published in the journal The Lancet in 1992. Those who grew up in rural areas have even less chance of developing disorders of this type.
Likewise, The British Journal of Psychiatry demonstrates that living in a highly urbanized area is linked to a higher incidence of depressive pathologies, according to an analysis carried out on 4.4 million people, as reported by the agency Science & the City, which works to take brain and behavioral sciences into account in urban projects.
Soothing architecture
The link between poor health and urban ugliness is not new, however. Architects were already interested in this question in the 1960s. The Danish architect Jan Gehl and the American activist Jane Jacobs assured that urban planning in cities bordered on the inhumane. However, they lacked hard evidence to overturn the status quo, Slate reports. Today mental health seems to be of particular importance.
In Villagrande Strisaili, Sardinia, for example, centenarians are the norm. Out of 3000 inhabitants, 5 were centenarians in 2016. What is their secret to longevity? Winding streets that force residents to walk on mountainous slopes. In addition, the houses include many staircases. The premises thus maintain a certain physical form. Terraced homes encourage interactions between neighbors and release oxytocin, which reduces stress.
Some architects did not wait for the results of studies of this type to think about architecture according to the needs of patients. This is what we call neuroarchitecture, a calming architecture. A psychiatric hospital near Lyon has inaugurated a unit for patients with severe autistic disorders. Alcoves have been installed to allow patients to isolate themselves. Rounded shapes offer a feeling of protection.
