Can we experience beauty in modern cities?

The city is a highly anthropized portion of territory, constantly challenged by the search for quality life and an aesthetic balance aiming at harmonious integration with the natural environment into which it is inserted, sometimes gradually, sometimes abruptly.

The city therefore experiences a perennial tension towards an ideal of beauty, which is expressed through a high level of well-being and liveability of its inhabitants. This tension reveals increasingly greater critical issues over time, such as the alarming data revealed by recent medical-scientific studies about the effect of urban environments on mental health, revealing a much higher incidence of psychopathy in urban than in rural environments. This phenomenon is mainly explained with the dissonance between the stimuli received by human against its biological expectations.

Urban space constitutes the opportunity for outdoor experience for all the citizen living around. If it is true that we spend 90% of our day indoor, public urban areas are our best chance for regeneration, for a break from the whirlwind of everyday life (the 10% of time left), to reinvigorate spirit and body and stock up on the right dose of serenity and wellbeing.

When the topic of planners' meeting discussion deals the central issue of the citizen's psychophysical well-being related to the environment offered, or their level of satisfaction with the general quality of life, the debate becomes difficult, almost sterile. And this happens both because individual spheres are difficult to investigate, and because concepts such as beauty and happiness are elusive.

As we move away from the area of discusison involving urban and architectural designers towards the working table of psychologists and sociologists, the debate becomes more prolific, and provide a large amount of solutions to put on trial.

Positive psychology is the new domain of psychology started in 1998 with Martin Seligman which became soon very popluar for instilling a general optimistic attitude, According to this strend all people are potentially capable of improving and achieving an adequate level of satisfaction with their own lives. Self motivation is of course an important point to rely on, but the context nourishing positivity and help flourishing through the promotion of beauty and relational well-being, can be of great support. The spatial and social context is important, indeed fundamental, because it contains those elements necessary for resilience and to overcome the negativities that inexorably arise in life.

Beauty (and related happiness) is therefore not just an abstract concept out of our lives and will, but a harmony of positive sensory stimuli human receive, as well as ethical values to rely on, ​​such as justice, fairness, freedom. Art, or what is officially considered as such, manifests itself explicitly in the city through artistic and sculptural works, whether they are static or interactive installations. But there are other ways in which art and beauty reveal themselves to people in a more accessible way, even if with less consciousness. The facade of a building, the pattern of a floor, the design of a bench, are all elements that mark an aesthetic experience that can be very strong, especially when they present themselves constantly in the citizen life routine.

The pioneers of neuro-aesthetics have well explained what some artist had already intuited at the beginning of the twentieth century, namely that we respond differently, on a cognitive and emotional level, to certain geometric and material characteristics, whether they concern a small object (furniture) or a large scale element, such as the facade of a building.

Neuro-aesthetics is able to distinguish and explain the different reactions that are triggered at the first visual impact, that is to say the geometry and the colour of image, aspects that can be under controll and review in the initial phase of a design project.

IMage from a post about the study of ARNOLD J WILKINS, UNIV.ESSEX

Biophilia, the hypothesis according to which human beings feel affiliated and attracted to everything that concerns the expressions of nature, finds its scientific evidence within the above research field. The pleasantness we experience while contemplating the natural environment is explained through the balance achieved between simplicity, the immediacy of reading, and the moderate level of attention stimulated. This simple relationship between spatial frequency and contrast is called “rule of nature”, that turn out to be broken in urban spaces. Here buildign facades tend to propose regular and repetitive patterns, which are sometimes stressful to look at (windows sequences of the skyscraper in the photo).

It is worth now making a small preamble and explain, in this regard, that our brain area dedicated to the recognition of complex landscapes, such as urban ones, appears to be very close to the one dedicated to the faces recognition.

Physiognomy, studied in depth by Lavater at the end of the 1700s, evaluated the way in which the stable features of people's faces influenced the judgment towards them. Afterword pathognomics contrasted with it, instead of considering the stable features of the face, which led to a prejudicial and bigoted approach towards people, it took into consideration the intentionality of expressions for the emotions of the moment. Although the lack of a solid empirical basis in support led us to consider this area of ​​research as Pseudoscience, it is nevertheless interesting to note how some studies in psychology and neuroscience were then inspired by these theories, and rpoved that innate tendencyof human to make quick (though not necessarily accurate) inferences about human appearance. Pareidolia, for example, is a phenomenon by which we associate certain architectures, or even random expressions of nature, with human faces, and leading us to judge some random features with an unexpected emotionality which conditions the aesthetic judgment. Although it is licit to overlook this conditioning, there is no doubt of unconscious tendency to attribute symbolism to the signs of the surrounding landscape, and sometimes also to abstract signs proposed randomly to us.

Image : see note 1

The example in the image above (1) compares abstract and isolated signs stimulating very different emotional responses. The first figure (straight line) is associated with the idea of ​​boring and static, the curved line is associated with the idea of ​​calm and comfort, while the last broken sign is generally associated with the concept of aggression and confusion. You may find the result obvious, but urban elements often offer visual experiences that range from stark to drab, demonstrating that no consideration is given during the design phase to what the emotional and cognitive effects might be, despite solid knowledge on this topic is available.

The ancients dedicated a lot of care to the aesthetic aspect of a building and of streets, and spent a lot of time in their creation. Time factor worked in their favor because it allowed a careful transposition of values, that is to say a direct and clear communication between the creators (deigners) and the craftsmen, while today the contruction process results complex and longlasting due to a large numebr of professionals involved. In short, the ancient cities were composed, polite and discreet, and above all conscious.

Today life is hectic, expression of a more entropic and stressed system. Excessive or distorted stimulations, even just visual, and deriving not only from chaos of signs but also from the monotony of endless repetitions (as just aid above), require accurate monitoring. The invitation to slow down and soften the language is not immediately accepted by all. The reason is to find first to an atavistic resistance to change, second to a long-term tradition that has praised the architecture of the sublime, the disruptive and representative one , who had educated us to perceive the ranking of buildings, and distinguish the buildings of power and military from others.

The spread of digital design software, which affirms the so-called  parametric architecture (linked to algorithms capable of proliferating independently) could represent the solution to he complexity of the contemporary world, and promote the ideological change. If it is true that traditional design and construction need to be slow to encourage coherent and organic growth, then the time is ready to rely on this design tool. Paramentric design could help resolve the false dichotomy that opposes two phenomena apparently in conflict: on the one hand the fear that artificial intelligence can supplant the human and, on the other hand, the human complaining about the inability to keep up with the rapid development of the times.

Image by ARCHDAiLY.com

In this case the fundamental role of the designer is not denied, but remains and persists for the responsibility of monitoring the results of the new processing tools.

I believe that one of the most avant-garde design teams of the moment, the MVRDV group, expresses its intention to put into practice a new approach in this realization inaugurated in 2022 in Amsterdam. For a point of reflection on what has been said here are some photos and the description of the project made by the authors themselves.

“Valley is an attempt to bring a green and human dimension back to the inhospitable office environment of Amsterdam Zuidas. It is a building with multiple faces; on the outer edges of the building is a shell of smooth mirrored glass, which fits the context of the business district. Inside this shell, the building has a completely different, more inviting natural appearance, as if the glass block has crumbled away to reveal craggy rock faces inside replete with natural stone and greenery”

Most of the building area is open to public use. The material chosen for all the surfaces, horizontal and vertical, aim strongly to reveal the initial idea of a geological conformation.

Image by ARCHDAiLY.com

Alain the Botton, in his book "Architecture of Happiness", defines us as vulnerable to what we perceve, and this vulnerability can be all the stronger the less we are aware of this continuous communication between the signs of the built space and the users who live there.

The purely aesthetic experience, until now considered, is but a fragment of a very complex interaction, that not only considers the multisensory experience, but also the different psycho-behavioural dynamics.

In the next articles we will try to analyze these other aspects.

(1) image form the book “Architecture of Happiness”, Alain the Botton, Penguin Book, 2006

Bunkers and shelters: stories of power and fear

The latest generation of powerful are exploring alternative solutions to the natural habitat, financing projects to create artificial spaces far from the earth's surface. Some aim at hyperspace, others at underground shelters. However, if we needed to escape our world, is there any hope of leading a happy life underground? And how convenient can be investing so much money in these projects?

“Who wants to live forever... (when love must die)”, a song from the soundtrack for the 1986 film Highlander, reflects on the anguish of immortality and overcoming the death of loved ones. Even if it was possible to create a large place for a large community, we would face a long period of psychological and physical discomfort. Not only does love die, but beauty also fades. Who would, or rather, who could, live underground for a long time, without access to the light of the sky and an outside space, especially after experiencing how depressing an isolated life can be? Perplexity persists despite the awareness that the new survival shelters offer every comfort and present themselves as luxury homes. But luxury is not synonymous with beauty and, even if we can reproduce an environment similar to the natural one, how can we not fear the precariousness of a totally isolated and secret system?

SKYLIGHTS THAT OPEN ONTO VIRTUAL SKIES SIMULATE NATURE IN LUXURIOUS ATMOSPHERE

The market for bunkers homes has been growing in various parts of the world, and result attractive especially to the new emerging rich. In the US and the former USSR, old Cold War command centers and storage facilities have been transformed into survival condos and exclusive hangouts. More recently built secret villas are on sale in New Zealand, becoming topic of conversation among Hollywood stars and high-level athletes. But the claim to create independent and closed artificial systems always turns out to be utopian, and not only because freedom to move and explore distant and different places is what makes our planet the best place to live, but above all because the technology that promises safety and efficiency generates a persecutory mechanism among those who are excluded from it, starting from curiosity and ending to desire to invade.

The Gated Communities of the 70s are already demonstrating the failure of the defensive and closed attitude. The “security drift” fueled the desire of safety in the short term, guaranteed by the exclusivity of access to these protected places, but in the long term it made the outside less familiar and more threatening, requiring ever more courage and strength for facing everyday life. In the case of the bunker on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, the owner - guess who - tried to keep the project secret, imposing a ban on all workers, from architects to painters, from disclosing information about the structure, under penalty of dismissal. The construction site is protected by a 6 meter high wall, but the intention to maintain secrecy had the opposite effect: it stimulated curiosity for disclosure of details. Important information was revealed, such as the size of the surface (approximately 460 mq) and the cost of the operation (270 million dollars). The project is also rumored to include disc-shaped treehouses and vast cultivation fields, perhaps in the hope that natural or man-made emergencies will be short-lived, allowing people to enjoy open spaces as an alternative to the large underground home. The latter extends along a tunnel with over 30 rooms linking two opposite vertical connections to the surface containing offices, conference rooms and a professional kitchen. If this huge investment allows for an honest movement of money then we can welcome it, at least from an ethical and ecological point of view. The scale of intervention is relatively small, not very invasive as regards its ugliest part, and may have a future as evidence of yet another sad story of delirium of omnipotence and control, of fears and escapes.

The BOrbonic Tunnel of 1853

There are numerous testimonies of attempts to control contingent realities in the past, interesting not only from an architectural point of view, but above all for the clear and easy reading of certain social and political dynamics. The desire for change and the achievement of new economic, political and social balances have always generated tensions and therefore interventions in the territory by the powerful of the time. Two very well-known examples in Italy are "the Passetto di Borgo” conceived in 1227, and the more recent Borbon Tunnel built in 1853. The first, an elevated pedestrian passage approximately 800m long that connects the Vatican with Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome, had the purpose to allow the Pope to take refuge in adrian's mole in case of danger, while the second was created in Naples, designed by the architect Enrico Alvino, as a safe escape route for the Borbon monarchs, given the risks they had run during the uprisings of 1848. The well-sheltered place then became a refuge from bombing during the Second World War and was enriched with other objects of the time, becoming a major tourist attraction.

To attenuate the claustrophobic sensations these stories have just arisen, let's conclude with an all-Italian project from 2016, which aims at alternative life solutions in space (see photo below). The idea envisioned is for a cis-lunar city module with 1000 individuals located in different residential areas (neighborhoods) in orbit and on the Moon, in the hypothesis of an orbital interchange node with 100 people. The spaces are designed on principles of democracy and inclusion, trying, at least on paper, to minimize internal conflicts between the inhabitants, and abandoning the logic of selecting passengers, as has been done so far with astronauts. The anguish developed at the idea of ​​underground bunkers is replaced here by a smile at the thought of a hyperspatial future. This solution doesn’t sound innovative at all, for the expectations fed by the last moon landing taking place over fifty years ago.

Anyway we hope the new generations will experience that not as an escape, but just as a new way of spending vacations.

2016 – ORBITECTURE, STAZIONE ORBITANTE, INFLATABLE SYSTEM, by PICA_CIAMARRA_ASSOCIATI

Architecture as applied science

On November 29th, on the occasion of webinar “ GESTALTART among Art, Therapy and Neuroscience”, organized by the MaRT of Rovereto (TN) and the UrLA association, I talked about the relationship that binds architecture, neuroscience and psychology together. The thematic context of the conference could not have been more appropriate, since it is in the Gestalt movement that the so called neo-humanism roots (the new cultural context that underlies the paradigm of design) lie. At its own time the perceptual theory of Gestalt realized how the experience of reality is the result of an individual interpretation, and that the objectivity of phenomena does not count for a qualitative evaluation of space. Kurt Lewin's field theory, also of Gestalt matrix, extended the attention from processes of perception to social and group ones, and explained how our behaviors depend on living spaces as well as on the people living there.

Unfortunately, the movement lacked solid scientific evidence that would explain the perceptual and behavioral phenomena detected, but it has the merit of having set up, later on, a new path of investigation, an interdisciplinary applicative area that would validate the results in a purely scientific field, besides stimulating further investigation.

Awareness of interaction between human and the environment, and the subsequent availability of scientific evidence in the new millennium, has elevated (neuro)architecture to the rank of applied science. Neuroarchitecture is a practice that can be considered therapeutic, or even better, salutogenic, because it does not cure illness generated by unhealthy spaces, but prevents it, creating the conditions for well-being at 360 degrees. The various scientific references of this new interdisciplinary approach concern mainly cognitive sciences, neurophysiology and psychology, but other disciplines which apparently seem very distant , such as biology, genetics, mathematics and physics, play also an important role.

Wilson introduced the term biophilia thanks to his book published in 1981, and with it the biophilic hypothesis was born. Such hypothesis not only explains principles such as beauty, good and fair, but also yields to further investigations in biological and epigenetic fields.

A more mathematical approach is represented by the "spatial syntax" (Space Syntax), which is an analysis methodology that translates social and individual behaviors into graphs and matrices, and is capable of expressing the qualitative aspects of space with numerical data, predicting its ability to attract or repel people according to set targets. Anticipating future scenarios and controlling over any perturbative phenomena become a very useful tool to ensure the success of artifacts, whatever are their scale of intervention.

Another numerical interpretation concerns fractals. The fractal is the invariant geometric entities which, repeating themselfs in different scales, helps to decode the shapes that surround us and distinguish simple shapes from complex ones. The analysis of fractals helps to decipher the subliminal messages that the geometries of the environment transmit to our unconscious, and capture the delicate balance between complexity and simplicity, that is the tension that exists between the annoying and tiring stimulus and the boring and flat one.

But the science of design doesn't end here. Other important interactions and contaminations, in addition to the scientific ones, support the design theory in an open and infinite process. The science of design exists, (we can finally give a positive answer to Gropius' question of 1947 (1)), but it will never be exact, because it evolves according to an asymptotic curve, which tends to dominate the complex and dynamic reality, without but never succeed completely. 

The Krebs Cycle of Creativity shown below manages, better than words, to express this strong creative tension that binds together not only architecture and science, but also art and technology (engineering), going beyond the relationship of two to we are already used to. The relationship between art and design is easily understood since the two disciplines distinguished themselves after being born and lived for a long period as one.

Later on it is technology to go through the same kind of emancipation, when the industrial revolution separates skills (art and technique) that once coincided. The last decades are getting us used and familiarized with a new phenomenon, the close collaboration between art and technology. The interactive art installations are capable to express new emotions through a new and more democratic language than the one expressed by painting and sculpture, although theancestral purpose of analyzing, breaking down and highlight the most mysterious aspects of our life are unchanged.

  In this complex relationship of four, a double dichotomy and tension is created between the eternal and fixed principles of nature, and what, instead, is the result of a continuous evolution of culture and behavior, which constantly redefines necessity and utility of the acquired data (the artificial). Trivially, if this process worked perfectly and the right interactions occurred with the right timing, the creative product would be perfect and there would be no difference between artificial and natural, but this is not the case.

“The relationship between science, engineering, design and art is just like a clock, where you constantly shifting and moving from one domain to another, and the input for one domain becomes the output for another. Science converts information into knowledge, engineer converts knowledge into utility, design converts utility into culture behavior and context, and art converts the culture behavior and question our perception of the world. And when art meet science, it’s the Cinderella moment in the 12 o’clock.”

Quote above by Neri Oxman, ex model, designer and professor at the MIT Media Lab, where she leads the Mediated Matter research group. She created the above Krebs Cycle of Creativity.

Note (1) . Walter Gropis, Is There a Science of Design? Auckland University College, School of Architecture, 1954