Category: Articles

Originally published in Builder Polska magazine no. 10/2024.

The relationship between color and health is profound and multifaceted, encompassing psychological, physiological, and cultural dimensions. Frank Mahnke, a renowned expert in color psychology, emphasizes that color’s influence extends beyond mere aesthetics; as a form of energy created by light, it directly impacts our mind and bodily functions. 

Color Perception

Color can alter cortical activity, affecting higher-level brain processes like perception, memory, and decision-making. It also influences the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which regulates involuntary bodily functions such as heart rate, digestion, and respiratory rate, and can affect hormonal balance. These effects highlight that our reactions to color are holistic, influencing us on both psychological and physiological levels.

Originally published in Builder Polska no.11/2024.

From chronic discomfort to severe health risks, our buildings may be doing us more harm than good. Since the discovery of Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) in the 1970s, the link between indoor environments and our health has become impossible to ignore. The time to rethink our materials is now.

Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) and the Evolution of Healthy Materials

Since the 1970s, the term Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) has been used to describe health issues that seem to be linked to the internal environments of buildings, especially in offices. Initially, the mechanism behind symptoms such as eye irritation, headaches, and general discomfort wasn’t well understood.

However, research soon revealed that the primary culprit was the quality of indoor air, not only from external pollution but also from the out-gassing of building materials and furnishings.

This phenomenon has become a critical concern, pushing the scientific community to investigate the harmful chemicals in common building products.

Today, we know that many compounds, like waterproofing agents, antimicrobials, plasticizers, and flame retardants, can cause more harm than the benefits they are supposed to offer.

One emerging area of concern is nanotechnology. While these materials offer significant performance improvements, they can become hazardous when they come into direct contact with people, especially when they break down and release micro-particles into the air.

These tiny particles, often smaller than cellular barriers, can penetrate deep into our bodies and settle there permanently. This is particularly alarming in the case of PBTs (Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic chemicals), a class of substances that don’t dissolve in the environment and accumulate in our tissues.

In architecture, the sound of a building is usually overshadowed by its visual appearance. It might even be an afterthought. Yet, as researchers learn more about our relationship with sound, the need for “sonic architecture” is becoming more evident. And with smart building technology, it’s become an accessible tool for designers too.

Sound impacts us physiologically and psychologically in ways that are just as profound as other architectural considerations like lighting, spatial layout or temperature––if not even more so.

For designers looking to create human-centric and scientifically led buildings, sonic architecture is an exciting opportunity to put research into practice and improve people’s experiences in a multitude of ways.

The World is Sound

There’s a fascinating book by German journalist Joachim-Ernst Berendt called The World is Sound. The book itself is about musical cultures around the world, but the title sums up just why sound is so important: Sound is omnipresent. It affects us 24 hours a day. Even when we sleep, our brains listen out for sonic cues about our surroundings.

As human evolved, our ears were (and still are) important survival tools, feeding us information that might be the difference between life and death. So, we’ve evolved to respond very quickly and powerfully to sound. We hear things even when we can’t see them and we use sound to make sense of physical spaces––which makes it a particularly important consideration in the built environment.

I am riding in a taxi through Warsaw, Poland. After being nearly destroyed in World War II, the city has undergone extensive reconstruction. The taxi driver tells me: “After the war, Warsaw was rebuilt to resemble Moscow; that’s why we have grid-like, wide streets, and the traffic is not as bad as in other cities.”

But I see it differently. I can imagine Warsaw being organized in superblocks instead. The idea comes from Barcelona, where they close streets to cars between several smaller blocks. 

The Western civilization is increasingly describing the world in negative terms. According to a recent article in the Financial Times, the last two decades, particularly, have seen a marked increase in pessimistic literature.

And it seems to be no different when it comes to journalism and popular culture. But the actual reality of our daily lives usually looks different. Consider the following quote.

“The old benches, the sound of the brakes, the bell when requesting a stop, all while passing through the neighborhoods I love [makes it my favorite spot].”

Due to the growing mental health crisis, society has shifted its focus to promoting human well-being. This is said to be even more important for younger generations. At the same time, there’s growing evidence that our mental health is highly responsive to our environment.

For example, when people feel isolated from each other and from nature, and when they live in densely populated cities, both their mental and physical health suffer. Because exposure to the built environment affects our emotional and psychological health, it’s important to study and measure it scientifically.

But well-being is a complex concept, and measuring it isn’t always easy. We can think of it as the pursuit of pleasurable experiences or life satisfaction (hedonism), but it can also be understood as personal growth, wholeness, and living a good life through the pursuit of meaningful goals (eudaimonia).

There is hardly anything more difficult to quantify in architecture than beauty. How can I quantify beauty in a market where values are controlled by capital? How can I give an emotion not only a value, but also a price? How can I trust people to feel with their hearts and not just reason with their brains in a world where the greatest trust is placed in data and digital?

To me, beauty is an art, not a science. You can’t catch it, you have to follow it. I will not put a price tag on beauty, and I will not talk about numbers and formulas.

Instead, I have decided to share my very personal ten criteria for beauty. These are neither complete, nor do they pretend to be the absolute. Since I have taken the liberty of doing this in a very personal way, I will outline them not only theoretically, but also practically. I will do this based on projects I have designed myself or personally collaborated on.

Suppose after years of marriage, one partner calls for divorce only because they want someone younger. In movies, we’re supposed to be disgusted with this person for abandoning their loved one, even though nothing is wrong. Yet this situation describes analogously our relationship with many consumer products.

We constantly want the newer (younger) model. On average, people abandon their cell phones for a newer one every year and a half. Computers tend to be replaced every three to five years. People, on average, replace a car every 8.4 years. These replacements often have nothing to do with whether the old one is broken.

When brand new, people croon over the glory of these objects, and they keep buying them because they “can’t live without them.” However, they can and do live without them; any given model is expendable once the new one hits the market. Architecture is not immune from this cycle. People consume and keep consuming.

More than half of the world’s population lives in cities. And urbanization is only accelerating. By 2050, it is estimated that seven out of ten people will live in urban areas.    

In ancient times, outdoor spaces were designed primarily for community activities and rituals. They were social and religious spaces, part of an individual’s identity. But today, we are witnessing a deprivation of public space that creates boundaries and aggravates social inequalities. We experience urban space differently than before.

We increasingly see discussions about a “denied city” caused by non-inclusive policies and designs. In such a city, it’s increasingly difficult to find common spatial goods that belong to everyone. The question is – how do these conditions affect human well-being?

I grew up in my grandmother Ramona’s house. She was a happy and outgoing person. The house was always full of people. In the morning, it was filled with neighbors who took a few minutes on their way to work to have coffee with her, and in the afternoon, the house was filled with friends, children, grandchildren, and nephews. It was a house full of energy and memories of the past.

At the age of 75, my grandmother began to confuse the names of the people who visited her, and it was then that her children realized it was due to dementia. My father, Gildardo, who lived next door to my grandmother, cared for her. He helped her keep track of her medications, stock the refrigerator with food, and ensured she always had what she needed.

My grandmother’s home was a significant part of her life. It was a place where she felt safe and comfortable. It was also a place where she could connect with her memories. She had many pictures and belongings from her life on display. These things helped her remember her past, family, and friends.