urban scrawl Issue 3
Reasons To Be Cheerful
www.urbed.coop
2 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
The world financial system, the economy, the coalition government, the budget (or lack of it), the public sector cutbacks, the architects and planners at the job centre, the developers in administration, the projects shelved, the masterplans left gathering dust, the sites left unfinished
and the World Cup... Its has been rough recently.
Is there anything more than years of penny pinching and wound licking to look forward to? Well yes we think there is This Urban Scrawl is dedicated to the threads of hope still out there in this fractured, turbulent and fragile world
of the built environment.
It may seem strange to talk about happiness at the moment, but many people are. Researchers, developers, social thinkers and politicians are all wondering why we didn’t get happier in the years of plenty. Indeed research shows that levels of happiness were lower in the boom years than they were in the years of austerity after the war. So maybe we should be planning for happiness rather than prosperity? If so, what does this mean in practice and how can the built environment be designed to promote
wellbeing.
In the spirit of enquiry Urban Scrawl set out to ask.
Editorial
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Exploring Happiness
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Exploring Happiness
Editoral Team:
Sarah Jarvis, Andy Kelham, John Sampson
Photographs:
Charlie Baker: Front Image, p.5,Back Image
David Rudlin: p.4 Pete Halsall: p.21
Illustrations:
John Sampson: p.10-15
Contents
Credits
3 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
URBED (urbanism environment design) Ltd
Fifth Floor, 10 Little Lever Street
Manchester, M1 1HR
t. 0161 200 5500
email: [email protected] web: www.urbed.coop
4-7
Rebuilding the market:
– rethinking housing
after the recession
Sarah Jarvis interviews practitioners and
commentators to discuss who are we
currently bulding new housing for and
how might this change in the future.
8-15
Exploring Happiness
Nick Dodd describes the work
he has been doing on a health
happiness and wellbeing standard
for the developer igloo.
16-19
Manifesto Upgrade: from
Comfort to Happy, Flourishing
Super Monkeys
Jamie Anderson trys to find out why we
can’t get happy in our moern cities?
20-21
Happiness Strategies at
One Brighton
Pete Halsall of , BioRegional
Quintain talks about their
‘One Brighton’ Scheme’
22-23
Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood
- Communities are good for you
David Rudlin asks should we be paying
more attention to the communities
we are helping to create?
1
Editorial
24-25
The Built Environment and Wellbeing
Elizabeth Burton on WISE (Wellbeing
in Sustainable Environments)
4 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
Rebuilding the market
– rethinking housing after the recession
Until about October 2007 it seemed
that property sold itself. It wasn’t just
property, of course. We were buying cars
and CDs, TVs and trainers, as well.
The recession changed all that, and now
companies across the board are looking
for new opportunities to rebuild their
markets. Designer Wayne Hemingway
points out that one strategy invaluable to
all successful manufacturers is to find out
as much as they can about their customers.
“That’s why everything including cereal
packets has surveys asking people
about themselves and their tastes.”
But that doesn’t apply, apparently, to
house building. “Of all the industries
we have worked in, housing is the
weakest in terms of understanding what
its customers want.” This is because,
he concludes, until now housebuilders
“never really had to take much notice.”
Hemingway contrasts thought given
to selling second hand homes: “Think
of all the television programmes that
are devoted to telling us what people
want, what colour to paint your house,
which kitchen to fit. At Red or Dead
we had researched our customers to
the nth degree – and we were doing
that for a bloody blouse. But ask
MORI how many house builders
have been to them to commission
research on what people want.”
So we did. Bobby Duffy, Managing
Director of Public Affairs at Ipsos
MORI has certainly not seen a change
in behaviour. “I think it must be one of
the most under-researched industries
relative to its value – they must spend
a minuscule fraction of a percent on
research, in contrast to most mature
markets.” But Duffy says that he cannot
really see the recession changing that,
as experience shows that it has not in
As the runaway housing market catches its breath in recession, Sarah Jarvis has interviewed practitioners and commentators from the across the sector if we are really making the most of an opportunity to redefine new housing and re-engineer a product that may be what people say they want, but which has
not always promoted happiness and well-being. Is it time to ask ourselves who are we building for and how might that change in a future uncertain?
the past. He finds a particular mindset
in the house building market not to
spend money with research agencies,
whether they are volume housebuilders
preferring to do their own in-house work
or niche market-makers relying on their
own understanding of the market.
Dan Bridgett, Head of Public Affairs
at Barratt Developments counters
that Barratt carries out “exhaustive
research”. Customer satisfaction is
extremely high and, Bridgett asserts,
that does not happen by accident.
But who has been buying new build?
Hemingway quotes research by Savills at
the turn of the Millennium, which showed
that only between 20 and 28% of house
buyers would consider buying a new house
from a house builder. “If only 20% wanted
to buy this product how does it still exist?
Imagine if the same were true for M&S or
the BBC – they would soon cease to exist
– so how did housebuilders survive?”
5 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
Yolande Barnes, Director of Residential
Research at property agents Savills
confirms that buyers of new build houses
are still not typical. “When housebuilders
do research, what they do is they ask
their customers. But they forget that
their customers are a weird lot in terms
of the whole market, certainly in the
past they’ve been a very rarefied group
indeed, because they’re the people
who buy new build. They keep asking
the lunatics about the asylum.”
One problem, she believes, has been the
narrowness of the product range on offer.
“Traditionally the mass house builder has
not catered to a broad range of occupiers,
they have gone on targeting the same
people. Ten years ago it was all ‘executive
family homes’; then they said they would
broaden their market base, but they just
added another type of homogenous buyer
– the buy-to-let investor. So they built
buy-to-let flats or executive homes and
nothing in-between.” Barnes thinks that
the only real areas of oversupply now are
in Docklands in London, and city centres
like Leeds and Manchester – all the places
where big regeneration projects have been
focused. “We have been so unimaginative
about doing these things. We think
that building buy-to-let flat factories
actually constitutes regeneration.”
Where families have a choice, flats largely
remain unpopular and Barnes is aware that
much modern development has also been
particularly child unfriendly, from the signs
saying no ball games to the creation of vast
tracts of grass that nobody’s allowed to
actually sit on. “We’ve generally speaking
built single buildings west of the City of
London because that’s all the land that’s
been available, so unless there’s already
a park and all the amenities there, we
haven’t been building neighbourhoods
suitable for children.” She mentions an
expensive high-rise riverside apartment
scheme in London where the glassed-
in ‘winter gardens’ are crammed with
toys. “By contrast in Hammarby Sjöstad,
Sweden, although it wasn’t anticipated that
families would go there, the good internal
space standards and outside space have
attracted families; the general design and
good neighbourhood that was created,
with cars underground, etc, was very
usable, very practical. I can’t think of many
schemes in London that replicate that.”
She notes, however, that there is a cultural
difference between the Scandinavians and
the British. “A lot of people forget that
your average, middle class Scandinavian
family will have a wooden hut in the woods
or the beach, and that is important.”
She emphasises, also, that Hammarby is
still a relatively new place, and believes
that we should not forget the success of
established neighbourhoods in Britain
such as Northcote Road in Wandsworth,
South London. “You can learn much
more from studying that neighbourhood
about how to make a good place than you
can even from Hammarby, because it’s
evolved – it provides what people want.”
Sprawling Housing development in Hul
6 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
David Birkbeck, Chief Executive of not-
for-profit company Design for Homes
(where Barnes is also a director), is more
concerned with the other end of the
purchaser’s lifecycle and thinks that one of
the main challenges for housing in future
will be unlocking the huge proportion
of the country’s property value currently
“tied up in the hands of pensioners”.
Having so many of the country’s three-
or four-bed homes occupied by single
pensioners has created an imbalance in
the housing stock and while Birkbeck
acknowledges that the reluctance of
people to move home later in life can
be for social reasons as well as through
a lack of choice, he believes that there
is now a pressing need for new products
in the marketplace which can help
make the decision to downsize easier.
Like Barnes, Birkbeck is also looking to
Europe for examples that we can learn
from and has recently visited several. He
believes that crucially older age should
not mean isolation. “Switzerland is a good
model here, and there are also schemes in
Denmark and Sweden, such as Neptuna in
Malmö’s Western Harbour District which
is a Lifetime Neighbourhood. There needs
to be a greater range of people living
together – pensioners near kindergartens
works very well, it keeps people active.”
Birkbeck advocates that we get used
to thinking of our ‘property lives’ as
having two halves – up to the age of 50
and then from 50 onwards. This way
we will make provision for the needs of
our old age earlier and as part of the
wider community. While there are some
schemes being developed in Britain they
often tend to be gated developments with
campus-like facilities for people who can
retire early. The Pad 55 development in
Pickering, East Yorkshire, showed the
importance of removing the covenant
restricting the age of those living there,
so that it becomes easier to sell the
properties later on in the second hand
market. In general, though, the product
Hammarby Sjöstad, Stockholm
7 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
in the UK is still far too inflexible. “We
need to think like train companies offering
‘off-peak tickets’ – our housing stock is not
flexible like that. There needs to be more
money for researching those products.”
One practice that is exploring a more
flexible product is Croydon-based
Geraghty Taylor Architects, who are in
pre-application discussions to develop
their ‘Living Home’ scheme on a local
back land site. A 3-storey house on a
relatively small footprint can be turned
from a single family dwelling into three
flats or a flat and maisonette. The scheme
has been driven by an awareness of fuel
poverty issues and the generally poor
performance of older housing stock, but
also addresses the cultural and social
factors that can inhibit older people
from moving house later in life.e.
Brian Alborough at Geraghty Taylor
thinks that the post-recession landscape
will definitely be changing for house
builders as both local authorities and
customers become more discerning. From
his experience with other authorities,
he believes that “Croydon is ahead of
the game”. From April 2010 the south
London borough – where former CABE
and Housing Corporation Chief Executive
Jon Rouse is now in charge – will be
requiring a Sustainable Homes Code
Level 4 on all new housing. Croydon is
also still building new council housing
of its own, with a development of larger
family homes planned at Code Level 5.
And while the commercial house-building
market may still be crippled, Birkbeck
says that it won’t be in five years’ time.
This will be an opportunity for other
European companies to bring different
house building models to the UK market,
products that perhaps better suit our
needs, desires and aspirations, products
that intuitively engage with the promotion
of a healthier, happier lifestyle. Companies
registering interest with the HCA’s Public
Land Initiative have included Bouygues
and Skanska, with its ‘Modernahus’
model, which uses substantial off-site
manufacture. Birkbeck believes that one
advantage they may have is that “they are
more aware of what they’re building”.
As well as new products, Barnes believes
that housing needs a fundamental
change in the underlying model of
development. “The problem in the past
was that it was all about what yields most
in the short term, not the long term.
The individual house builder was often
working directly against the interests
of the long term landowners, but when
the long-term landowners were a whole
range of disparate people who will buy
in a frenzy, it doesn’t actually matter.”
To replace the mono-cultural
developments that have proven
so unsuccessful – both in terms of
placemaking and with the market – she
believes that a better mix will be achieved
by encouraging longer-term investment.
“Recession has forced change because
the market has fallen away, but so far
what it’s resulted in is nothing happening,
rather than something else happening.
What hasn’t changed is that we haven’t
yet got the mechanisms for long-term
developers to come on board.”
Citing the model of successful commercial
property owners, like the Howard de
Walden estate that owns London’s
‘Marylebone Village’, she would like to
see new tax incentives to encourage a
longer-term interest. “When investors
have a long-term ownership in the area
they are going to want to get a better mix
– and not just flog it as quickly as possible
to the nearest high bidder.” She believes
that such investment could attract the
sort of investing institutions who would
otherwise buy very long-dated bonds. But
at the moment she believes that “no one
in the property industry really speaks the
language of the investment and finance
industry. We have got to learn to turn
these design propositions that we know
are good for communities and good for
places, into financial propositions.”
Finally, Hemingway believes that just
as the building industry must change, so
too has the buyer. “When house builders
could sell all they built they didn’t have
to care about their customers. Nowadays
people are more discerning. They are
not rushing to buy houses anymore as
the mortgages are not there and the idea
that prices are only going upwards so you
can’t fail to make money has gone.”
With hindsight, the recession might
have been the spur developers and
policymakers needed to rethink
housing, to create a better climate
of building for the betterment of the
individual purchaser and collective
community. As Hemingway remarks,
“the difficulty to get a mortgage might
eventually prove to be a good thing.”
8 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
The Pursuit of happinessSpecialist property investor igloo
Regeneration commissioned URBED to
develop a new set of policies designed to
shape how their developments improve
people´s ‘Health, Happiness and
Wellbeing´. Here we set out our thinking
behind the policies.
Whilst the notion of a property developer
seeking to improve people’s health,
happiness and wellbeing might seem a little
esoteric, in reality it is something that has
preoccupied architects, urban designers,
local authorities and even property
developers for centuries.
In seeking to bring greater ‘health, happiness
and wellbeing’ to urban neighbourhoods
igloo is following a rich tradition of not just
investing in buildings, streets and spaces but
in thinking about how they may influence
people´s quality of life now and for many
years to come.
The city as a place of contradictionsCities have always been places of
contradictions and are often portrayed
as unhealthy places characterised by
pollution, crime and the worst of human
nature. Places where people live closely
together but often know nothing about
one anothers lives and where the values of
community have been eroded.
Trends in society, social engineering and
the poor quality of the urban environment
and buildings in many of the UK’s cities
have conspired to re-inforce the unhealthy
image of our cities. Examples include:
• Badly designed buildings without
sufficient natural daylight and
ventilation, containing potentially
harmful materials and finishings,
• Air pollution from vehicles and
increasing congestion which directly
affects health, reduces life expectancy
and increases stress,
• More sentient and decadent lifestyles
which have reduced how much physical
exercise we do and increased levels of
obesity,
• A degraded public realm and a lack
of quality green space that limits the
potential for exercise, relaxation and
social contact,
• Social exclusion and deprivation
that has proved consistently difficult
to tackle, leaving whole sections of
society without hopes or aspirations
for the future,
• Status anxiety, stress and time pressure
resulting from modern working
conditions and consumer society
which have contributed to a dramatic
increase in mental health problems.
But cities are a place of contradictions.
The ‘wit and mess’ of urban life has always
attracted people, creating new possibilities
for free expression and for meeting people
from different places and walks of life with
Exploring Happiness URBED have been working with specialist property investor and developer
igloo regeneration to develop and monitor socially-responsible principles for property investment, now known as their Footprint Policy. The initial principles
covered regeneration, sustainability and design. To these have been added a fourth category covering well-being and happiness. URBED’s Nick Dodd
describes these new principles and the standards that have been set.
9 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
new perspectives. ‘Town air makes the
man free’ wrote George Simmel observing
German cities in the 18th Century.
Cities have always stimulated new ideas
and thinking, challenging human ingenuity
to respond to the needs of urban society.
Great cities are creative and dynamic places,
where people and place come together to
create something really special.
Can regeneration improve wellbeing?There are large areas of urban Britain where
hope for the future is hard to find. In the
post-war era the decline of manufacturing
has created whole areas where high
employment is the norm. Slum clearance
and social engineering in the 1960’s and
1970’s created immense upheaval and
served to accelerate the erosion of the
social fabric of these communities.
The modern drive to ‘regenerate’ carries
the risk of further polarising society. With
the gap widening between the haves – those
with the wealth to sustain an increase
in values and buy into ‘urban living’ and
healthy lifestyles - and the have nots – the
socially excluded living in poor quality
housing, without access to employment and
basic amenities, exposed to crime, social
breakdown, insecurity and a degraded local
environment.
To try and change things a careful approach
to ´regeneration´ is needed focussing first
on people´s wellbeing. The psychologist
Abraham Maslow provides useful insight
into what this might mean in practice. He
observed that people have intrinsic needs
that have to be met in order to ensure they
can see a future in which they may be happy.
The implication is that before we can even
talk about happiness a focus is needed on
what is needed to improve people´s basic
living conditions and their health and
wellbeing – housing, employment, crime,
environment.
The pursuit of happinessHappiness is equally as precious as health
and wellbeing but is less easy to reliably
orchestrate. In modern consumer society
people often define or calibrate their
happiness against their peers, or what
clever marketing establishes as lifestyle
aspirations. This has the created the
modern Catch 22 of status anxiety in which
we demand greater choice but as a result
can never be happy. Increasing mental
health problems are a symptom of this,
together with the increased pace of modern
life in which time is a commodity.
The need to live more sustainably has added
to the concerns of modern life. But this
need not be a barrier to greater happiness,
and in fact it may offer a way forward as
people have begun to question modern
lifestyles and aspirations. Research by the
New Economics Foundation, amongst
others, has highlighted that fact that
“people are just as likely to lead satisfied
lives whether their levels of consumption
are very low or high”.
Contemporary sociologists such as Gehl,
Puttnam and Oldenburg have highlighted
the importance of a ´life lived with others´
- our intrinsic need for social contact. Their
writing suggests that the pursuit of happiness
might lie the creation of opportunities for
people to define happiness on their own
terms – by creating the space and time
to nurture social bonds and networks, in
whatever form they might take, and to have
a family. Modern patterns of commuting
have also upset people´s work/life balance.
For this to happen spaces are needed
for where social contact can be made
– in streets, public spaces, markets, third
places (such as cafes and pubs) or even,
as suggested by recent projects such as
the new suburb of Vikki in Helsinki, be
augmented by the internet. Schools have
been shown to be particularly important
in fostering social contact across different
forms of tenure and ethnicity. Urban living
also offers a solution to restoring people´s
work/life balance by promoting greater
proximity between home and work.
But happiness is not just about social
contact. Returning to Maslov´s theme
of ´self actualisation´ is about having
hopes and aspirations for the future and
the opportunity for people to realise
their potential. This could include the
potential to establish new businesses in
order to realise their ideas and to support
themselves and their family. But it can
also relate to people´s community and
neighbourhood. In each case it is about
creatng the opportunity to participate in
shaping, influencing and investing in their
future.
For more information on igloo and
to download the footprint sustainable
inverstment policy visit:
www.igloo.uk.net
10 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
Creating opportunities for community
Foot
fall
Targ
et =
8,0
00 p
er d
ay
10m
per hr
25%
STANDARD 1: VIBRANCY
and In
tesity
Standard 1: Vibrancy & intensityThe public realm should provide enough visual
interest and active facades at ground level to
retain people for longer, and to encourage them
to stop and spend time in the neighbourhood.
This should be measured based on:
• Footfall, with a target of 8,000 per day for
active frontages, adjusted for the temporal
distribution caused by different mixes of uses.
• Façade visual interest, with a target for areas
of active uses of at least 6-8 unit doors per
100 metre, of which at least 1 should promote
sitting, extending into the public realm
• People’s speed of movement, and the length
and type of interaction with the ground floor
uses - with a target of a 25% stopping to
look, and 20 people per hour / 10m of facade
stopping to socialise or go in/out of a building
Developing igloo´s approachBringing together this thinking has resulted
in four new policies which in turn deal
with ‘health, happiness and wellbeing’ and
which will be applied to all their property
investments. Their approach is based on
three basic premises:
• Celebrating the city: .
That the focus should be on celebrating
and emphasising the positive
contribution that cities have made to
civilisation, the ways in which they can
improve people’s quality of life, and
how their more detrimental effects can
be minimised or even designed out.
• Context is everything: ..
That the starting point for an
igloo regeneration project should
be an appreciation of the wider
neighbourhood, and the impact
each intervention will have on
neighbourhood wellbeing, with an initial
focus on basic needs and defficiencies.
• Happiness but not at any cost: .
That igloo should seek to create
opportunities for people to live
fulfilling and happy lives, based on an
understanding of the human condition
and basic needs, and bounded by a
strong social contract and the need to
live within environmental constraints.
The new policies set out measures and
standards that at first glance seem common
sense but in modern developments are
overlooked. They also focus attention
on the wider neighbourhood, and in the
spirit of urbanism, the chance to harness
the potential of cities to change lives and
realise people’s potential. It is in this way
that the long-term value of investment
in regeneration can be unlocked, to the
benefit of investors, communities and the
environment.
The standards are set out below:
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Exploring Happiness
Legal respon
sibi
lities
STANDARD 3:
SO
CIAL CONTRACT
A Social Contract......................................................................................................................
Upk
eep of the scheme
Responsibilities of resi
dent
s
Public
realm
Communal areas
Com
munal Facilites
STANDARD 2: B
RO
ADBAND ACCESS
Standard 2: Broadband accessAll homes and workplaces in igloo schemes
will have access to high capacity fibre optic
broadband networks, in order to give them
a competitive edge, facilitate modern
patterns of living and working, and in order
to future-proof data transfer capabilities.
Communal facilities and portals will be made
available to all residents in order to facilitate
networking and information sharing.
Standard 3: Social contractAll residents of igloo schemes will be required to
sign-up to a ‘social contract’ that is similar in its
role to a tenancy agreement. The ‘contract’ should
clearly setout legal responsibilities – such as to
avoid anti-social behaviour – with the capacity
for other aspects to be formalised as social norms
defined by each community over time. It should
be based on best practice from mixed – tenure
schemes and social landlords, and will setout
the rights and responsibilities of residents to
one another and to the upkeep of the scheme
and its public realm and communal areas.
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Exploring Happiness
STANDARD 2: NATURAL EDG
E
80 tr
ees =
1km Blu
e Spa
ce
Green Space
Vib
rant
urb
an scene
Supporting Healthy Lives
STANDARD 1: Dual Access
STA
NDARD 5: PR
IVACY
Airborne
Impact
Part E +5dB
Part E -5dB
xx
xx =1
12m
Standard 1: Dual aspectThe majority of residential units should have two
perpendicular aspects, particularly where streets
are narrow or north facing. The two aspects should
be no more than 12 metres apart (for conventional
ceiling heights and a 1:1 street enclosure ratio),
with the internal layout facilitating the free
passage of air between the two aspects – with
the exception of internal stairwells or communal
atriums that are designed to passively ventilate.
Standard 2: Natural edgeAt least one aspect for each home or workspace
should provide a view with visual interest,
either in the form of a vibrant street scene or
green/blue space in a courtyard or across a
larger external space. Street trees should be
planted at a density of 80 trees per km of street.
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Exploring Happiness
STANDARD 3: MATERIALS TO BE A
VO
IDE
D
Use of cncrete should be carefully considered
Volitile Organic
Formaldehyde
Compounds
Lead
Compounds
Chlorinated
Compounds
Toxic wood
Preservatives
STA
NDARD 5: LIFE
TIM
E HOMES
Standard 5: Lifetime homesAll igloo homes will seek to comply with the broad principles of Lifetime
Homes. igloo will seek to ensure that it’s ‘Lifetime Homes’ respond
to the need to attract and retain people in cities, to include people
wanting to start a family but to stay in the city, but also older people
wanting to ‘downshift’. Through its management arrangements igloo
will seek to respond to residents changing needs, which could include
assistance to identify and/or move to homes that are smaller or larger.
Standard 3: Materials to be avoidedSpecific materials will be blacklisted and will be excluded from use by contractors. The initial list
will include:
• Chlorinated compounds – Fluorinated carbons such as
HCFC’s, polyurethane, polystyrole and PVC
• Formaldehyde – Contained in products such as particle board and insulation
• Lead compounds – Contained in paints or primers
• Toxic wood preservatives – PCP’s, lindane and dichlorofluoronide
• Volatile Organic Compounds – Common paint ingredients and solvent
bases including acrylic resin, ethylene glycol, petroleum and toluene.
The use of concrete should be carefully considered and designed
in order to take into account potential for radon gas.
400m
STAN
DARD 4: LEIS
URE ROUTES + SPACES
>2km
Standard 4: Leisure routes & spacesAll residents and workers should have access to
at least one safe walking and cycling route that
enables them to make a leisure walk or cycle
of at least 2km from their front door and in a
continuous green setting (see Standard 2). A
green or open space of at least 1 hectare should
be accessible to all within a 400 metre walking
distance, and in family areas this should include
a Local Equipped Area of Play (LEAP).
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Exploring Happiness
STANDARD 1: SECUR
ITY
Living in the city
Standard 1: SecurityEntrances and transitions from public to
communal/private space, as well as the quality
of external doors, windows and fixtures will
conform with the latest guidelines published
under the Police’s Secured by Design standards.
Concierges will be provided where it is viable.
igloo will seek to respond to best practice and
guidance promoted by Secured by Design,
in so far as it does not conflict with igloo’s
emphasis on informal surveillance created
by well used streets and public realm, and
community stewardship of the public realm.
STANDARD 2: M
icroclimate
2.8m
280
260
<14m
1.5% 2%
0.58%
Standard 2: Microclimate• Sky view: Schemes should achieve an average ground
floor Sky View Factor of 0.58, with no one street or
ground level window achieving less than 0.18. Ceiling
heights should be at least 2.8 metres, preferably
higher at ground level, and glazing ratios should
be higher on areas of façade with a lower Sky View
Factor, albeit balanced against potential heat loss.
• Daylighting: Plan depths for residential and commercial
units should aim to be less than 14 metres for ceiling
heights of 2.8 metres. Individual residential units
should achieve daylighting levels of 2% in kitchens
and 1.5% in living rooms, dining rooms and studies.
• Overheating: The internal microclimate of homes
and workspaces should moderate temperature
within a tolerance of 28 oC for 99% of the time with
bedrooms that are below 26 oC for 99% of the time.
15 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
STA
NDARD 5: PR
IVACY
Airborne
Impact
Part E +5dB
Part E -5dB8m
>15m
Tow
n Houses
10m2
per unit
Communal Private
Flats
+
5m2
7.5m2
10m
2
STA
ND
ARD
4: E
XTERNAL SPACE
STA
NDARD 3: INTE
RN
AL SPACES
66m2
51m2
77m
2
93m2
106m
2
Standard 5: PrivacyHomes will have an airborne sound insulation value at least
5dB higher than that required in the current approved Building
Regulations Document Part E. Impact sound insulation values
will be at least 5dB lower that the performance standards set
out in Part E. At least 10 % of igloos homes will be tested
to demonstrate that they achieve the required standard.
Intrusion should be minimised through consideration of glazing,
internal floor layouts and distances between blocks. This should
be based on the guidance referenced. Distances between blocks
facing onto streets can be relatively tight, potentially down to 8
metres, as long as properties have a second aspect with a longer
view, and a distance from other units of more than 15 metres.
Standard 4: External space (private and communal)Schemes will be designed so that homes have access to a
combination of public, communal and private external space. For
blocks and streets 10m2 of communal space should be designed-
in per unit, usually in the form of courtyards, although up to 50%
of this could comprise streets designated as home zones. Minimum
in-curtilage private external space standards are as follows:
Standard 3: Internal SpacesHomes will conform to the following
minimum internal floor areas
16 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
Manifesto Upgrade: from Comfort to Happy,
Flourishing Super Monkeys
You are a super monkey. Well, super primate - with hundreds
of millions of years of R&D behind you. Trouble is, with the
exception of the last few years (approximately 8,000), you and your
genes were designed for an altogether different environment. You
are, as Bjorn Grinde puts it, a Stone Age creature living in a Jet
Age Zoo. This brings about mismatches or living conditions that
are alien to the conditions that shaped us - the Environment of
Evolutionary Adaptedness (EEA).
For instance, EEA moulded us, amongst other things, as biophiliacs.
Pardon? No, that wasn’t an insult – it’s why most of us, sometimes
on a deeply sub-conscious level, love nature – from potted plants
to eco-tourism. This affinity with nature is powerful. A clever
Swede called Roger Ulrich has shown that hospital patients with
a green view, not only recover more quickly, need fewer drugs
and encounter fewer complications - than those with a view of a
brick wall. Grinde calls problematic mismatches - such as lack of
patient contact with nature “Discords”. The demise of family and
community are two further discords at the interface of culture and
our biology.
As a cultural form, we know, intuitively, that the built
environment has brought and continues to bring discords.
However empirically, it is far from clear to what extent the
built environment is responsible, directly or indirectly,
for this deterioration in happiness. Neither is it clear
which specific aspects are mismatches that, in
fact, enhance mental wellbeing. For instance, a
combination of urban green infrastructure,
appropriate massing and street definition
We were born hedonists. As babies we are unabashed pleasure
seekers, trying to grab smooth objects, chomping sweet edifices
and checking out pretty things. We are wired to pursue happiness
but, despite this positive start, the proportion of people in UK
saying that they are “very happy” has fallen from 52% in 1957 to
just 36% today. This is echoed in numerous developed countries
- each frittering colossal potential – since happy people tend to
flourish and are associated with physical health, positive relations,
engagement and
productivity. Why
so unhappy?
URBED’s Jamie Anderson has been working for the last 12 months on a PhD at the Martin Centre at Cambridge University. Based on his research this article looks at urban design through the lenses of Positive & Evolutionary Psychology
17 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
is not only beneficial in terms of microclimate and physiological
comfort but, the associated wildlife seems to bring a lot of people
joy and the positive enclosure - a sense of coherence and increased
social interaction. One of the first attempts to determine the
impact of urban traits was undertaken by Greenwich Council
and their Teaching Primary Care Trust (Guite et al, 2006). This
primary research established 13 factors as, statistically, significant
to promoting well-being in local people. Nine other factors were
found not to be significantly associated (see table).
An evolutionary psychologist may flag-up that we can be extremely
sensitive to negatives (the majority of the items on the left side of
the table). We may be like this for good reason; evolutionarily, our
monkey brains knew that if we were not careful about ‘sticks’ then
there may be no ‘carrots’ to collect (Hanson, 2009). Our aversion to
the taste of sour – which is detected at 1:2 million - compared with
1:200 for sweet - is one example. These days, a well-used marriage
formula may have more relevance: make five positive remarks to
offset a single negative remark! (Gottman, 2005). Scenarios more
innocuous than an annoying spouse can prompt stress responses.
The reaction is sometimes formidable - our bodies can be flooded
with endogenous opioids to dose pain, our blood vessels constrict
so that we are less likely to bleed, our heart pounds - ready to prime
muscles etc. Our ancient systems are primed for survival and the
negative emotions of anger and fear - towards perceived threats
(Etcoff, 2008). The ‘smoke detector’ is turned up too high and may
activate at a violin recital, or when walking in your local park.
However, a positive psychologist would assert that, although
responses to threats are essential (if we were governed only by
pleasure we would not survive) evolutionary theory neglects
positive emotions. These emotions may have played an equally
important part in encouraging us to behave in ways that ensure our
survival. They might say that not only do we need to make people
feel safer with ground floor street animation and more comfortable
with microclimate strategies but, look for ways to encourage
opportunities and enhance positives. For instance, positively
defined and appropriately enclosed streets, active ground floors
plus benches, play areas, public art, biodiversity etc. Good urban
design makes sense in positive psychology terms.
But we do not always get what we design. How do we know which
features are of most importance to well-being? Do some features
override others for different users? Do we know all of the most
effective design interventions that cultivate happy patterns of
behaviour, thinking, feeling, motivation and social connection?
There have been only modest amounts of valid research to date so
the answer to these questions is still no. The science of well-being
Significantly Associated
• Damp
• Noise
• Sense of crowding
• Feeling safe in the day time
• Feeling afraid to go out at night
• Event to get people together
• Places to stop and chat
• Access to community facilities
• Access to greenspaces
• Needles and syringes left lying around
• Access to entertainment facilities
• Liking the ‘look’ of the estate Transport and accessibility
Not Significantly Associated
• Height of building (to live in)
• House type – house, flat, maisonette
• Light, heat, draughts
• Age of property
• Density Recorded crime levels
• Sports and exercise facilities
• Shopping facilities
• Vandalism and maintenance
• Feeling that people can influence decisions
Factors found to be significantly associated with
mental well-being in Greenwich
Urban and rural population (billions) - UNEP
18 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
offers an opportunity to bolster as well as broaden the holistic remit
of the urban design paradigm. Particularly in developing countries,
where urban populations are increasing exponentially and it is
paramount that wellbeing is optimized.
As with any science - definitions are a good place to start. Happiness
and well-being are both umbrella terms and are sometimes used
interchangeably. There are two key types of well-being and both
apply at personal and interpersonal levels. The first – hedonics
- is more commonly known as subjective well-being (SWB). SWB
is very much about how people feel. It is about pleasure and
enjoyment – the presence of positive emotions, the absence of
negative and satisfaction (Huppert et al, 2009). SWB gives us at
lot to go at. The positive emotions alone – as recently suggested
by Paul Ekman - are thought to include sensory pleasures,
amusement, contentment, relief, excitement, wonder, ecstasy,
elevation, gratitude and compassion. There are even two emotions
that elude the English dictionary: Schadenfreude - happiness in
another’s misfortune; Naches - pride and joy in their children.
The second key type of happiness is known as psychological well-
being (PWB) and is based on Aristotle’s eudaimonia; the life well-
lived. PWB extends well-being beyond the way people feel and
is more about how people function. It is about their autonomy,
competence or environmental mastery, interest, engagement and
meaning or purpose in life. It is about well-being as an active process
‘well-doing’ and not the passive process of how good people feel
(Huppert et all, 2009). As an urban designer working at URBED,
the concept of eudaimonia brings a degree of reassurance. Amongst
other things, we strive for connectivity, freedom of movement and
truly public realm. We push for densities that are conducive to the
establishment of small businesses and public transport. We treat
regeneration as a truly participative and collaborative process with
capacity building and community-led design. Each of these, in
different ways and to varying degrees, encourages engagement and
active participation; ‘well-doing’.
So why super monkeys? We are 98% chimp but the 2% variance
makes a huge difference. Since separating from our primate
ancestors our brains have nearly tripled in size. The architecture of
our skull has been overhauled in a blink of evolutionary time. This
is largely to accommodate huge frontal lobes and the pre-frontal
cortex (Gilbert, 2008). These new structures are involved in the
‘executive functions’ such as thinking, planning, problem solving,
language and regions in the left pre-frontal cortex are at the seat
of positive emotions (Begely, 2004). In additon, our brains can
enlarge and gain in sophistication throughout our lives. They are
far more adaptable or “plastic” than we ever thought. They are
built for change and to learn. We can all therefore lift our ‘set-
point’ - our average happiness - for ourselves.
As individuals, the combination of evolved executive functions
and neuroplasticity is powerful. They allow us to learn and/ or
employ psychological processes such as mindfulness, altruism,
compassion, optimism training etc. We can free ourselves from
the automatic behaviors and emotions (i.e. fear and anger) of our
primate relatives and embrace our positive mental attributes to
synthesize happiness. Meditating Buddhist monks are a powerful
example. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, scientists
have found that monks revamp their brain structure and function
by expanding or strengthening circuits. As a result, the more
experienced the meditator; the deeper and more enduring were
the levels of well-being observed (Davidson, 2005).
But this change is generated from within. We are also susceptible
to experience of the external physical environment. One of the
most famous examples is that of London Taxi drivers. Researchers
have found that the number of years spent taxiing correlated with
the size of posterior hippocampi - the area of the brain associated
with navigation and spatial memory (Maguire et al, 2000). Monks
and cabbies both demonstrate we can remould our brains all of the
time. Can the places we design, which are experienced repetitively,
help expand and strengthen peoples’ happiness circuitry? It
is important to note that both the monks and the taxi drivers
make these changes under behavioural control. In other words,
they are not achieved in ‘auto-pilot’ mode. It is not clear what
19 – ISSUE 03
Exploring HappinessExploring Happiness
the cumulative impact may be for our well-being if we are either
unconsciously interacting, or, the built environment stimuli is not
sufficient to cause a subjective reaction.
Recent research concluded that it may well be important to design
for sensory stimulation (Byoko et al 2008). This does not necessarily
mean we should start licking buildings or sniffing shared surfaces.
It certainly does mean that we can pay more attention to the senses
and grapple with questions such as: what does the notion of hedonic
adaptation (becoming habituated or used to good or bad) mean for
sunny, thoughtfully scented, tactile public space? How else can we
build or encourage eudaimonia - which people do not adapt to and
can be constantly varied?
It is understandable that research into happiness may prompt
some skepticism. Quite rightly, we have a fear of architectural
determinism and repeating carbuncles associated with modernist
optimism in the 1960’s- 70s. However, the modernists did not
employ any proper holistic (valid or reliable) ‘affective forecasting’
- knowing how we will feel in the future. Research and design
has already come along way in reducing discords, environmental
stressors, making people safer and more comfortable. We have a
much better understanding of microclimate, democratic streets
and spaces etc. This has been very important work in light of our
hyper sensitive ‘smoke detectors’ and the fact that pleasure is, in
part, about the absence of negative emotions. And as mentioned
earlier, we have already gone some way to promoting eudaimonia.
We were born hedonists and although many of us lead comfortable,
wealthier lives, we are not, on average, that happy. Our genes
are expressed through environment (Huppert, 2009) and the
built environment may have a role to play in activating as well as
regulating genes. It may well be a moderate impact compared with
psychological interventions we learn, like the monks, as individuals.
But we can ‘point’ or at least ‘nudge’ peoples’ happiness - both
directly via the senses - for passive recipients and in-directly i.e.
facilitating social interaction or meaningful job creation for active
participators. Collectively, as practitioners and researchers, our
large ‘plastic’ forebrains equip us with the imagination to work,
more deliberately and creatively, towards an upgraded manifesto:
taking us from comfort to a happy and flourishing species.
20 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
Happiness Strategies at One Brighton
As a developer we are corporately
committed to creating One Planet
Communities. The joy of working with
these principles is the process of discovery
as the implementation of such ideas
requires considerable research, debate,
soul searching, thinking and no small
amount of trying to work out how to frame
and then apply them. We have taken the
Corbusian approach, and omitted both the
car and the megalomania to create features
and characteristics that will engender
health, happiness and a genuine sense of
community? Architectural philosophers
might say the idea is that of a latter day
humanistic modernism – I say fine to that,
but let’s be a little braver and call it health
and happiness by design.
So – what have we done? Firstly, we
consulted and asked everyone a basic but
powerful question. If you were going to
live in this building, what would make you
healthier and happier? Somebody suggested
that we use the roof space for allotments
The recently completed ‘One Brighton’ scheme by Bioregional Quintain is an experiment in happiness. Built as part of URBED’s New England Quarter
masterplan, the scheme has been conceived, designed, constructed, marketed and managed in accordance with the 10, One Planet Living principles. One of these principles is to promote health and happiness something perhaps a little radical for us Calvinist Brits? However Pete
Halsall of , BioRegional argues that we should assuage our feelings of guilt and silliness that we seem to feel in pursuing such a goal.
Exploring Happiness
and food growing areas, as that would be a
great place to socialise, meet new people,
and grow food and maybe flowers. So we’ve
done that. Another said that an apartment
building needs gardens, and not necessarily
of the public realm variety, but perhaps
in small , intimate places where one can
ponder and enjoy the view. So we have
incorporated ‘sky gardens’, lounge–size
outside spaces interspersed elevationally
between residential units. Rooms without
windows, filled with light, space and plants.
Our architect suggested that we could create
a sense of community with corridors that
mirrored non orthogonal street patterns.
So we’ve done that too.
We also thought about health in buildings.
Amazingly, the wider UK green building
community seems to have virtually no real
concept of it. Yes, we must save energy.
Yes, we must reduce air infiltration losses
as it’s silly after all to insulate a building
and then let the heat seep away from the
unseen cracks. But what about indoor air
20 – ISSUE 03
quality? What about the huge damage to
respiratory health by mould growth in warm
but wet buildings? We have created a vapour
permeable wall system so that water vapour
can escape to the outside and leave the wall
surface mould free. We have implemented
a Scandinavian heat recovery ventilation
strategy – not seeking to ventilate by drilling
holes in the frames of high performance and
very energy efficient windows – but rather by
mechanically bringing in fresh air, preheating
with waste exhaust air from kitchens and
bathrooms and then finally re-heating it
from renewable energy sources if required to
achieve a comfortable room temperature.
Above all, we have taken a simple principle
– health and happiness – and applied it
to all stages of the development. We even
applied it to our site workers eco-café, where
builders were fed local and sustainable food
produce. So let’s not forget, and this could
be the retrospectively created motto for One
Brighton - it takes healthy and happy workers
to create healthy and happy communities.
21 – ISSUE 03
Exploring HappinessExploring Happiness
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Exploring Happiness
Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood
Communities are good for you
Recognising the value of community is one thing,
understanding how communities work is quite another.
Yet without this understanding attempts to create
communities can go hopelessly wrong. This is where the
paternalism of public authorities has devalued the concept
of community and where academic and professional debate
has been dominated by some very muddled thinking.
Why does no one agonise about the need to build middle-
class communities? Is it that middle-class communities are so
strong that they do not need professional help or that middle-
class areas do not need strong communities to ensure their
success? The debate about community in the 20th century
was almost entirely focused on social housing. The reason was
that communities came to be seen as ‘good for you’ rather
than just good. There is just a short step from this to the
philosophy that ‘our idea of community is good for you’.
Inevitably many of the professionals and academics who have
debated the value of community over this period have done
so while living in the suburbs. In the suburbs what people
tend to mean by community is the rich network of voluntary
As we sculpt the urban neighbourhoods of our cities should we be paying more attention to the communities we are helping to create? Definitely!
Should we seek to transplant a suburban life experience into modern urban living? Definitely not argues David Rudlin in this extract from Sustainable
Urban Neighbourhood published by the Architectural Press.
23 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
groups such as churches and amateur dramatic societies which
thrive in such areas. People may only be on nodding terms
with their neighbours but they play an active part in networks
of people who share similar interests and values often over
quite a wide geographical area. At the same time behaviour
is controlled by a milieu of social pressures which ensures
that lawns are trimmed and disturbance is minimised.
This is not however the sort of community which has exercised
academics and professionals concerned with the inner city and
social housing development. Their idea of community has not
been the social networks and interest groups that characterise
suburban areas but rather a vague notion of conversations
over the garden fence, corner shops and being able to leave
your front door open while children play on the street. This
lies at the heart of the confusion over what we mean by
community. We have been seeking to promote a vague and
idealised notion of urban community yet we have judged such
communities by suburban standards so that we have failed
to recognise and value them even where they do exist.
This is perhaps best illustrated by a personal example from
Manchester. I remember walking around the terraced streets
of the Great Western Street area of Moss Side with a group of
fellow council officers in the mid 1980s. It was a warm day that
could have come from the memoirs of those elderly residents
who moan that things were so much better in the old days.
Front doors were left open, children were playing in the street,
people were chatting on doorsteps, a couple of men were fixing
a car propped up on bricks and one particularly blasé dog was
snoozing in the middle of the street. The perfect picture of an
urban community, one might think. However this was not what
my fellow council officers were seeing. What they noticed was
the loud music coming from the open doors and the group of
youths on the corner who might have been drug dealers. The
children playing amongst the parked cars were in mortal danger
(not to mention the dog) and were symptomatic of the area’s
lack of play facilities. The car mechanics were an unauthorised
use on the public highway. They noticed the overturned bin,
the broken glass, the graffiti and could no doubt have found a
syringe or two if they had looked hard enough in the back alleys.
In short, what they saw was not a tightknit urban community
but a stressed inner city district in need of their help.
This is the way that many professionals view urban communities
– through suburban eyes. Most of my fellow council officers
commuted in from the leafy suburbs of south Manchester and had
a very different idea of community from the people of Moss Side.
This is not to say that either idea of community is right or wrong
or to suggest that Moss Side’s community was perfect. It does
however illustrate some of the confusion that muddles the debate
about community. The community in many of the older parts of
Moss Side has many of the characteristics that professionals and
academics have been promoting for years yet when confronted
with such a community, warts and all, in a deprived inner city area
they either do not recognise it or do not like what they see. Instead
they start judging urban areas by suburban standards. This is when
attempts to build or engineer communities can go badly wrong.
Exploring Happiness
23 – ISSUE 03
Sustainable Urban Neighbourhood: Building the 21st Century
Home – Architectural Press Oxford 2009
This updates the 1999 edition Building the 21st Century Home
that played a small part in the rediscovery of urbanism in the UK.
The new edition has been re=written drawing on the history of the
last ten years as well as URBED’s experience working a range of
strategies and masterplans across the UK.
24 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
I was told
on more
than one
occasion in
design studio
reviews to
stop thinking
about people
and to see
the building
as sculpture
Pause a moment and think about your
favourite urban place. It may be indoors or
outdoors. It may be somewhere you go for
holidays or somewhere you visit regularly.
Imagine being in this place now. How does it
make you feel? If only we could capture what
it is about this place that makes it so good,
in order to recreate it in new development!
This is what we are trying to do in the WISE
(Wellbeing in Sustainable Environments)
research unit, now based at the University of
Warwick. I set up the unit in 2004, in order
to investigate how the built environment
affects our wellbeing, health and quality of
life, seeking to find aspects of design that are
positive and to offer evidence-based guidance.
WISE grew out of my own disillusionment
with common architectural thinking and
education. When I began my architectural
training at University at the age of 18 I thought
– idealistically, you may say – that it was all
about making a better world for people. I soon
discovered that architecture was considered
to be an art form. I was told on more than
one occasion in design studio reviews to stop
thinking about people and to see the building
as sculpture. Contrary to Bentham’s Utilitiarian
ideas of ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest
number’, designing ‘to please the masses’ was
almost the polar opposite of what was admired
The Built Environment and Wellbeing
The wellbeing agenda is not peripheral or a ‘nice bonus’ for the world of architecture, planning and urban design, it is a necessity.
Elizabeth Burton founder director of WISE (Wellbeing in Sustainable Environments) at Warwick University tells us in her view why.
and promoted. I staggered through my degree
and went on to complete my professional
training, later taking up a research career
as it seemed to provide a better route for
developing an alternative design philosophy.
Recent heated debate at a Cumberland Lodge
conference on ‘Hope in the Built Environment’
(November 2009), involving some well-known
UK architects, convinced me that architecture as
modern art is still the norm for the profession.
It is interesting that even architects presenting
‘design for wellbeing’ speak in highly abstract
terms, stating design benefits with no evidence
base or user opinion. To be fair, I can see why
architecture has adopted this stance. The
Modernists got such bad press. Yet, many
of them, Le Corbusier included, very much
embraced their social agenda. On the whole,
they aimed to make life better for people, to
free housewives from the drudgery of their
existence, and to lift people up into the sunshine
and fresh air. The problem was, well meaning
as they were, they got it wrong. They got it
wrong because their proposals were based on
their own original ideas about what would work
– none of these were tested or based on previous
evidence of success. So what has happened
since then is that architects have retreated
from their social role, denying that they are
engaging in any way with social engineering
25 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
or architectural determinism – after all, how
arrogant it is to assume they know what is best
for people! It is much safer to claim the artist’s
role. What was more, towards the end of the
20th century the architectural profession as a
whole was coming under threat because of new
contractual arrangements such as ‘design and
build’ and the rise of the ‘project manager’.
Everyone and anyone can have a view on design
– compare this with the protected position of the
medical consultant whose opinion is the final
word. It is not surprising that architects further
mystified their role by using a language that was
increasingly specialised and obscure, delivering
the message that not everyone could do the job!
We are at the beginning of a new decade
and never has the need to design our
environments for wellbeing been stronger.
There are several reasons for this:
1. Wellbeing is an integral part of
sustainability, and in order to address
climate change effectively we need to
design low energy environments that
people want to live in and encourage
them to live more sustainably.
2. There is growing evidence of the
link between health and built
environments, particularly in relation
to obesity problems and the need
for ‘walkable’ neighbourhoods.
3. The social model of disability and related
legislation has led to increased interest
in inclusive design or ‘design for all’.
4. We know now that continued economic
growth is not necessarily going to make
us happier so there is a new focus
in policies worldwide on wellbeing
and how it can be promoted.
As for the activities of WISE, we are in the
process of setting up a new Masters course
on health and the built environment, which
aims to train a new generation of designers
and practitioners in evidence-based design
and design for wellbeing. Initiatives in this
area, mostly in the US, have been limited
to the design of healthcare facilities. There
seems to be a lot of interest already in this
more generalised, multidisciplinary course.
Moving forward, there will be many challenges.
We need to find ways of turning research
findings into guidance that doesn’t unnecessarily
inhibit creativity. We don’t want to foster a
‘one size fits all’ design solution that reduces
environments to a lowest common denominator.
It is essential for our research to address
the more intangible elements of design (e.g.
‘ugliness’) and to control for the many other
influences on wellbeing. Design for wellbeing
needs to allow for the many differences between
people and to avoid conflicts with other worthy
requirements such as energy reduction and
historic conservation. But at the beginning of the
2010s, I issue a clarion call to all those interested
in the built environment, to actively pursue the
wellbeing of all people in society – ideals still
matter and we can build a better world . . . .
For more information about WISE,
contact Elizabeth Burton (e.burton@warwick.
ac.uk) or visit the website:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/
healthatwarwick/research/devgroups/environments/
We know
now that
continued
economic
growth is not
necessarily
going to
make us
happier so
there is a
new focus
in policies
worldwide on
wellbeing and
how it can be
promoted.
26 – ISSUE 03
Exploring Happiness
urban scrawlIssue 3
www.urbed.coop
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