Inner-city buses, delivery trucks, schoolchildren and people heading for the subway entrance are all part of Fridhemsgatan in Stockholm, punctuated by the sound of emergency vehicles. That's why the street is a perfect place to study how we are affected by a rather chaotic urban environment.
In a pilot project, architects, property owners and brain scientists will work together to create a living laboratory. The aim is to find out how changes in the urban environment affect those who move around there.
"To my knowledge, this is the first time that brain research has been integrated into urban planning in Sweden," says Camilla Berggren-Tarrodi, project manager in architecture and urban planning at Rise, one of the partners in the project.
Constant compromises
She has extensive experience working with urban planning and knows how difficult it is when architects, property owners, municipalities and landowners have to work together.
"Even if everyone is in complete agreement at first, it's difficult to get values about the environment itself and the experience for those who will be there into the process. I have been in meetings where everyone initially agrees, but then they immediately start talking about the turning radius for the trucks that will be able to drive there."
Today, between 55 and 57 percent of the world's population lives in cities, a figure that, according to the UN's Housing and Urban Development Programme, is expected to increase.
There is research that shows that spending time in nature increases well-being and is linked to positive health effects. But when it comes to how we are affected by urban environments, the situation is less clear.
"There are parts of cities, streets, neighborhoods or just certain areas that don't feel good. Where you don't want to stay longer than necessary, but we want to get the facts about why," says Camilla Berggren-Tarrodi.
Asphalt against greenery
By showing that certain environments actually increase or decrease our stress levels, the project's initiators believe it will be easier to bring the issues to decision-makers and investors when it comes to urban planning.
"Economics will always be a driving factor. But if we can show that good design leads to better health and ultimately lower costs, then the soft values can become part of the economic logic," says Camilla Berggren-Tarrodi.
At Fridhemsplan, a group of schoolchildren squeezes through a crowd about to board the bus while a truck squeezes in between bicycles and taxis.
Here, the currently asphalt-dominated area will be transformed into a so-called pocket park, a green path along the sidewalk. The existing facade will be clad in natural materials such as wood and in earthy colors. The project is a collaboration between Rise, University College London (UCL) and Alecta Fastigheter.
"We strive to introduce softer shapes and create a completely different kind of environment than the one we have now, with more vegetation and an inviting street environment," says Helena Ågren, business manager for urban development at Alecta Fastigheter, which owns the property included in the project.
By first interviewing people who pass by before the redesign and then after it is implemented, they hope to get a picture of how the environment is experienced before and after the change.
Gigantic lab
Isabelle Sjövall is a neuroscientist specializing in neurodesign and neuroarchitecture at Rise, a field where the built environment meets neuroscience. She explains that there is research that shows how our stress hormones and brain activity are affected by different urban environments.
"Right here at Fridhemsplan we will not measure individuals' brain activity or biomarkers, but since there is reference data from other places about what is happening to us, we can put the puzzle together and get a complete picture," she says.
To put the puzzle together, a reference library, a map of how we react in different environments, has been developed together with researchers at the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience at UCL. This makes it possible to measure how design choices affect the brain and health.
UCL runs one of the world's leading research labs for studying how we humans experience different environments - Pearl. It is a 4,000 cubic metre building where different types of environments are simulated. It is possible to build a supermarket, a waiting room in an emergency hospital, a railway station or a traffic junction.
"It is possible to drive a heavy truck into the building and record how people react," says Isabelle Sjövall, who completed her doctoral training at UCL.
In the project in Stockholm, which is funded by the state research council Formas, the initiators hope to be able to put flesh on the bones in the development of cities in the future.
"Parking spaces fulfill a function in the city, but they also occupy space that could create completely different values. By replacing them with a pocket park, as on Fridhemsgatan, we can significantly increase the quality of life here," says Camilla Berggren-Tarrodi.
The NeuroDesign & NeuroArchitecture Index (NDIX) is a new research-based method that measures and quantifies how different qualities in the built environment affect people's experiences, health, performance and well-being.
By identifying which factors in the environment drive stress, recovery, security, orientation and other psychological and physiological responses, the method can provide a more concrete basis for decision-making in community development.
The method can be applied to all types of environments and scales: hospitals, schools, homes, workplaces, digital environments and urban environments.
With support from brain research, NDIX contributes to more conscious decisions in the development of environments that promote human, ecological and economic sustainability.
Source: Isabelle Sjövall, Rise
