*By: M. in Arq. Romy Rojas Garrido.
When we talk regarding quality of life in the city, we normally relate it to factors such as job opportunities, adequate levels of pollution and hygiene, short commuting times between one place and another, the safety that is breathed in the streets, having a variety of options of recreation in terms of urban equipment, etc. Obviously all these factors are important but they are not a guarantee of success by themselves.
Christine Outram, founder of City Innovation Group, wrote a controversial article in September 2013 comparing Starbucks design methodology to the design of urban environments. In it, he accuses architects and urban planners of having forgotten that the engine of architecture and design is the human being and emphasizes the fact that urban design currently obeys patterns more pre-established by fashion trends than true needs. from the people.
Photo: Think Big Companies
It also indicates that the success of Starbucks does not lie in the quality of the product they sell but in the human connection that is achieved with the user. The atmosphere in a Starbucks was not created by chance, it was intentionally designed to provide the user with what deep ethnographic research concluded that he needed.
The example of Starbucks leads us to ponder the repercussion that projected spaces have on an emotional level. But then, what are the urban elements that cause feelings of happiness and well-being in the user? There is no golden rule, since the subjective perception of each person will always be influenced by their cultural background and their life experiences. However, there are research efforts aimed at discovering patterns that allow us to design empathic urban spaces with a greater connection with the user.
Photo: Urban Utopia.
Such is the case of a group of researchers from the University of Cambridge in England, who launched a collective collaboration project on the Internet in 2013 called UrbanGems. It consists of an interactive page where the user is shown ten pairs of photographs of urban scenes in London and for each pair the user must choose the photo that they consider closest to the subjective concept being evaluated, namely happiness, beauty or tranquility. . Through the analysis of the results, the researchers consider that a list of aesthetic virtues might be formed that might help in the understanding and systematic recreation of environments that intuitively cause us well-being.
Considering the emotional aspect as a factor in generating quality of life is as important as physical, social or economic well-being. Procuring friendly environments that stimulate the emotional and psychic well-being of human beings is the fundamental task of the architect, urban planner, designer and, in general, of any person related to the development of public spaces.
“One of the great, but often forgotten, causes of both happiness and misery is the quality of our environment, the kind of walls, chairs, buildings, and streets that surround us.”
Alain deBotton. The Architecture of Happiness..
*Romy Rojas Garrido is General Director of Urban Linked Culture “ULC” and President of the Advisory Council of the Network of Secretaries of Urban Development of Mexico “CONARED”.
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