Prof Colin Ellard was walking past the rows of new-build towers that dominate the west of central Toronto when he had a sudden realisation. “I was struck by how dark, sombre and sad these new urban canyons made me feel,” he says.
Ellard, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo in Canada who studies the impact of places on the brain and body, wanted to know why he felt like that – and if others felt the same.
His curiosity ultimately led him to conduct a series of virtual reality experiments in which he asked people to wear specialised headsets and stroll through a variety of urban environments created to test their responses. The findings, he says, proved he was not alone. Being surrounded by tall buildings produces a “substantial” negative impact on mood.
If proven, Ellard’s theory adds weight to existing studies finding a negative effect of high-rises on the mental health of city residents. With both government policy and the potential for greater profits driving high-density construction in cities around the world, this raises an important question for the development industry.
Ellard, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo in Canada who studies the impact of places on the brain and body, wanted to know why he felt like that – and if others felt the same.
His curiosity ultimately led him to conduct a series of virtual reality experiments in which he asked people to wear specialised headsets and stroll through a variety of urban environments created to test their responses. The findings, he says, proved he was not alone. Being surrounded by tall buildings produces a “substantial” negative impact on mood.
If proven, Ellard’s theory adds weight to existing studies finding a negative effect of high-rises on the mental health of city residents. With both government policy and the potential for greater profits driving high-density construction in cities around the world, this raises an important question for the development industry.
City dwellers have a 40% increased risk of depression and double the rate of schizophrenia, according to the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health. Ellard’s idea is that the moment to moment bad feelings he observed in the virtual reality environment can affect everyday interactions in the real world and people’s experience of living in cities. …
This all appears to cut against the urban planning orthodoxy that a certain level of density – around 30-50 homes per hectare – is necessary to make lively communities that are able to support shops, businesses and public transport. This idea is the reason the government endorsed higher density development close to transport links in February’s housing white paper. …
The question is how to build densely without these negative repercussions. “The villain isn’t density itself, it’s insensitive design,” says Layla McCay, director of the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health. “It’s about how you design in things that are protective to people’s mental health – green spaces and opportunities for social interaction.”
The question is how to build densely without these negative repercussions. “The villain isn’t density itself, it’s insensitive design,” says Layla McCay, director of the Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health. “It’s about how you design in things that are protective to people’s mental health – green spaces and opportunities for social interaction.”
Some have concluded there is a density “sweet spot” (pdf) that gives the benefits of sustainable city living without the mental health costs. Proponents of mid-rise development such as that found in European cities like Vienna and Barcelona, for example, argue for buildings constructed to heights of up to eight storeys within mixed use neighbourhoods where residential buildings sit alongside shops, offices and other work spaces.
This should be a meaningful post town planning ministries in Africa.Many Africa countries can take measures towards avoiding all such.
Thanks
“Are Highrises Depressing? CERTAINLY NOT!
I have lived here for nearly twenty years. I was fortunate to snag two bedrooms on the 10th floor of seventeen! My grand son, a VIU student, occupies the other.
I don’t know the architect: it’s a fairly innocuous design, over fifty years old, on the northern edge of downtown Nanaimo’s waterfront perched on a rock. I could see my moored sail boat in the harbour from my dining room window and resplendent Mount Benson looms from my living room.
I can see how the high rise in Vancouver has degenerated into disrepute: the designers the developers choose are not exactly top rate and everyone is so enamoured of the view they haven’t notice how badly planned and designed their city is.
The recent high rise addition to the downtown is a disgrace!
I’m always struck in summer coming into downtown over the bridges in the early evening how dark it is at street level compared to the rest of the city. Highrises block a lot of light.
I don’t buy the argument or the false dichotomy. Suburbia can also cause depression, and just measure the mortality of people who have to drive everywhere.
High rise and mid-rise living can be very liveable, offering affordability, choice, community, easy commutes to work, and access to urban amenities. We know how to create intense building forms with commensurate amenity. Slender point towers on row-house podiums share light and views. Elevate ground floor units by 3 to 4 stair risers so the people inside are above those on the sidewalk (they’ll keep their windows open if passers by can’t stare into their units. Create functional amenity spaces that flow off of a generous main reception lobby. Maximize the use of balconies and rooftops. Ensure streets are well planted with trees and resilient greenscaping. And ensure that new development contributes to the overall neighbourhood amenity.
Vancouver is a great model as are many European cities.
I prefer spending time in the Olympic Village area with its shorter squat buildings and narrow streets rather than on the other side of False Creek among the tall residential highrises – despite the generous spacing, parks and waterfront.
It’s tough to make a highrise residential area feel as happy and natural as a neighbourhood with lower buildings. To achieve density for walkability, transit etc. residential highrises don’t seem necessary, judging by all the cities and towns without highrises across Europe and Japan.
What’s he density of SEFC vs Marinaside?
Southeast False Creek varies quite a bit: the highest density built so far is probably Wall Centre’s three towers at 5.8 FSR, but the individual Olympic Village parcels are between 3.0 and 4.0 FSR. The three Marinaside parcels between Davie and Nelson are between 4.7 and 4.9 FSR. (For those not into plannerspeak, FSR is the amount of built floorspace above grade, divided by the size of the lot).
The density of high-rises and European style midrises built to the curb with wall-to-wall sides is about the same per block or per acre. Europe had an affordability issue 200+ years ago when hordes of peasants and farmers swarmed into cities like Paris, Berlin, London .. and since they did not have cars, trucks, buses nor elevators then they build walkable communities, aka mid-rises with 6-7 stories max.
Both can be beautiful or ugly. I have seen both in many parts of Europe. Yaletown is quite nice actually, but benefits from nearby open spaces ie False Creek. Burnaby’s Lougheed Mall or Brentwood Mall in comparison is depressingly ugly, cheap. But then, it is 50% of the price per sq ft. You get what you pay for I guess.
Compared to what Michael? According to the study they fare less well mentally than those with ground oriented living. Given the choice and funds which do you think most people would choose?
And given a constrained land base , or the negative impacts of a sprawling or failing highway system, or rising costs for housing?
The well being and good health, both mental and physical, of the citizenry should be paramount. Subjective opinions regarding the land base being constrained or negative thoughts about the highway system are all secondary.
As public health comes under the spotlight the wisdom of advocating massive dense blocks for housing must be questioned.
The ideological push for massive tower blocks with dark units with less glazing and tight seals causing stale air inside, all to reduce energy that is all powered by district energy plants needs substantial study.
You might end up saving the planet but killing off and making crazy all the inhabitants.
You can have density AND amenity. Again, depends on what cities they are studying. Correlation does not imply causality.
Stale air? Eric, you discredit yourself when you speak of things of which you know nothing. HRVs replace the air much better than leaky buildings and they do it without losing all the heat in the outgoing air. Up to 90% heat recovery in the best units.
Leaky buildings replace air inconsistently, much more on windy days. HRVs consistently bring in fresh air.
Our over-glazed highrises do capture maximum view but at the cost of massive heat loss in winter and massive overheating in summer. If you really are concerned about health then proper window proportions, tightly sealed building envelopes and high efficiency HRVs are all positives.
I’ll Passivly take your insult. The moves to again build dwellings and other spaces with windows that do not open will, as before, be met with limited acceptance.
These new reports coming in are reminiscent of the Sick Building Syndrome that is not remembered by the young. The oil crisis of the 1970s caused international ASRAE standards for air exchange inside buildings to be reduced. Many became sick.
Now another manufactured crisis is again sealing people inside structures.
Name one vacation style that means you will be cooped up inside something?
It is the antithesis of natural desire to be closed in.
Shall we talk about Radon?
Corr: ASHRAE
And yet your ignorance continues. Who said anything about windows not opening? Nobody is proposing residential buildings with windows that don’t open.
Some cities around the world are mandating sealed windows due to air quality issues, or more specifically, air pollution and resultant health concerns. So, Eric, that brings us back to transportation emissions as a primary contributor to those air quality issues. Your expressed concern for the public’s health is at odds with your promotion of ever more travel lanes, which are a direct cause of that air pollution.
If you had an apartment facing on to a ten lane expressway, would you want your windows to be open?
The Carling Lands Project was dense and generally low-rise. It is also generally very well liked.
https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/inpr/su/sucopl/upload/The-Carlings-at-Arbutus-Walk-Vancouver-B-C.pdf
A tower is completely different.
Arthur Drexler called skyscrapers machines for making money, no doubt rephrasing a much earlier comment by architect Cass Gibert who said: The building is merely the machine that makes the land pay.
They make me feel claustrophobic and uneasy. Totally can’t handle elevators.
There’s one substantial low rise at Patterson Station that has merit – a megalith with massive balconies. There was a time when I tried to buy in, but units for sale were scarce. One owner I bumped into said they’d take her out of there feet first.
It’s an old Bosa structure; built before they figured out how to stack them high. It’s unfortunate that the more desirable south-facing is so close to Skytrain that you could throw an apple and hit it. The sound of it will drive you insane.
Three storey walkups are good because they don’t require an elevator and are much cheaper to maintain than a tower.
Problems with towers and multi-family are the usual suspects: smokers, noise between walls and floors, and access to precious sun. Ventilation is also an issue if it’s not mechanical and not a corner unit.
A curious thing about walking is that when you get to your destination you are often seized with the need to relieve; when moments before it was the furthest thing from your mind. Suddenly it’s urgent. If you live in a tower you’re out of luck – unless there’s a Starpees nearby. It’s mind over bladder in the claustrophobic elevator. That’s more than depressing. With a SFD it’s a whiz.
Apart from the obvious point that city-dwellers peobably live more stressful lives than their country cousins…
Did the study only examine people walking about on the street (as if people did that al day long (perhaps some do))? Or did the study examine where an average person who lives and works in the city might find themselves throughout the course of the day?
– Did they measure people’s moods when they arrived at their highrise apartment or office to admire the view?
– Did they measure people’s moods when they crammed into a crowded subway car?
– Did they measure their moods when jostled on a crowded sidewalk?
– Did they measure their moods when standing in line for a coffee, tea or take-away?
Let’s pull Vancouver’s data out of that study. Or look at more primary research … https://pricetags.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/price-tags-104.pdf