Living Room by Formalhaut, Photo by Matthew Salenger
Five Factors of a Good Project*
by Matthew Salenger
Introduction…
Have you ever been drawn to or repelled by a certain building? Have you considered why you love it or hate it? Why you can concentrate better in some spaces than in others? Turns out there may be a scientific explanation on why some spaces allow people to be happier and function at higher levels.
There is growing evidence about how the built environment affects us in positive and negative ways, depending on how it is designed and built. Well designed environments provide greater health and happiness, whereas poorly designed buildings and communities inflict mental trauma and lower our cognitive and physical abilities. They can even create serious health problems, or reverse them. This raises questions on why so much of the built environment is designed without recognition of these important facts.
This text will explore how the construction/design/development industries moved away from designing for humans, how data shows what is at stake, and give examples of how to reverse course to provide better environments that will create a safer and more productive world.
(If you want to skip directly to the five factors, scroll down until you see “Five Factors of a Good Project” below)
*The title of this text is inspired by my friends and collaborators at vali homes, who talk about “five factors of a good building.” Their context for a good building is agnostic about aesthetics, focusing instead on comfort/health, efficiency/renewables, durability/resiliency, social equity/embodied injustice, and lifecycle carbon impact. Since we often operate together as two sides of the same coin/aspiration, I decided to cover the aesthetic and sensory aspect of what makes a good building/project, which means it is beautiful, emotional resonant & memorable, loved over time, well-functioning, and “sustainable”. A truly great project should embody all ten factors. In our experience, creating a project that “does it all” requires multiple experts (which can include Owners, communities, and the site or project circumstances) working as a team towards a common goal. That type of process is also the most rewarding.
How the built environment was once designed for humans:
Like the quote above, let’s begin with something simple. Start by thinking about where you live, and create an image of it in your mind. Which parts of your home town do you love and which do you ignore? Where in your town would you most want to be right now? How about your favorite place in the world, a built environment or fully natural- where is that? Close your eyes and picture being there now- how does it feel to be there? What is around you that feeds the senses?
My guess is the spaces you enjoy being in are rich, complex environments with aspects that appeal to the senses and put you at ease. Think about that term “at ease.” What does that mean, and how does an environment have the power to provide that feeling? I will return to this question in a moment, first taking a look at the history of the built environment.
The first shelters were truly of their natural environment through the use of raw materials at-hand. While out of necessity. This created a close connection between our shelters and the natural world- we were intimately linked to it. Although nature has often been considered full of danger through most of human evolution, it also provided physical and mental nourishment. Early humans understood we are a part of nature, as evidenced by the earliest known cave paintings. The developed ancient world (Ancient European, pre-colonial American, Asian, African, and Oceanic civilizations) acknowledged these connections through ornament and planning even as they built villages and cities creating safe separation from wilderness. Buildings often included depictions of plants that provided local building materials and foods in meaningful gestures to help us appreciate our world.
Let’s make a leap into the Industrial Revolution. Those holding power, and the designers they hired, held onto the importance of meaningful ornament in the early industrial movement, including during huge leaps in productive capabilities brought on with the industrial age. Early cast-iron structures often contained botanical ornament. Though one can note the gradual shift over time away from of precise botanical references and towards abstraction in iron work examples. One of the last true hold outs of elaborate ornament from the eighteenth century in the United States was the architect Louis Sullivan, whose beautiful buildings are still widely loved today. Sullivan began each ornament’s design based on a specific plant’s seed germ and/or form, transforming its simple shape into complex layered patterns that, while utilizing symmetrical geometries, took on the appearance of true nature. Sullivan’s buildings each provide ample evidence of how the right type of visual aesthetics produce near-universal love for buildings.
Through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, productivity grew rapidly- as did the population. People moved from agrarian-based jobs to industrial production, shifting populations from rural landscapes to urban centers. In order to house this shift in population, efficient construction methods were needed. The architectural style of housing changed from craft towards mass produced, with many housing developments designed and built with repetitive means. The transformation of urban environments, along with a change from agrarian lifestyles to urban ones, had huge consequences on human wellbeing and psychology along with changes in economics, production, and politics.
The built environment increasingly became more industrialized as well, more abstracted, less ornate. Many architects gravitated to new modern materials as a sources of inspiration. Many such architects were interested in creating better environment for working-class people through modern materials and better design. This may be best exemplified by the Bauhaus in Germany, who attempted to unify arts and crafts in replicable designs. The conversations held there produced early forms of what was labelled as “modern” architecture. Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus, along with several other European designers, escaped Second World War in Europe and arrived in the wealthy United States to continue their practices. Many of them, along with many architects in the Americas, were interested in finding a universal architecture that would provide equality and unity for all people, as described in the book No Place Like Utopia by Peter Blake.
Much of the modernist ideals were based on creating healthy environments, a reaction to pandemics such as Cholera and the Spanish Flu. Eventually, the benefits of modernism’s economical design and building strategies were utilized by many people in power, and the designers they hired, away from good design and towards greater economic benefit. And the results can be seen in the bland and Placeless built environments we have around the world.
Some of my least favorite examples of economic-based design are of contemporary American industrial buildings and mass-produced housing. The latter typology has been covered by my friend, Jason Griffiths, in gruesome and hilarious fashion with his book Manifest Destiny, with what he calls “an expression of indifference.” The visible indifferences in contemporary architecture stem from valuing economics over humanity- something we see in many industries including health care, food production, and education. The consequences are often quite negative, though they need not be.
The value of good design:
In the book 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design by Terrapin Bright Green, various scientific studies are linked to specific biological responses in humans. Based on the work of biologist E.O. Wilson and author Stephen R. Kellert, this book discusses various design strategies and the benefits everyone can gain from them along with the scientific studies as evidence. For instance, the visual and/or acoustic presence of water can reduce stress, increase feelings of tranquility, lower heart rate and blood pressure. Certain enclosed environments, when designed correctly, can improve concentration, attention, and perception of safety. In each of the 14 design strategies they include in the book, corresponding scientific studies are provided, all within a useful table on page 12. For design professionals, the book Nature Inside (by William D. Browning and Catherine O. Ryan) goes deeper into the best pathways for producing better environments.
There is growing evidence from scientific studies that show our environment has profound effects on human wellbeing. As Winston Churchill famously said, “We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.” One of the best sources for this type of information is the book Welcome to Your World by Sarah Williams Goldhagen. Though Goldhagen is a well-known architectural critic, the text is aimed at the general public and not design professionals. While it gives plenty of examples of scientific studies, it is extremely easy to read.
The book provides a very wide spectrum for how the built environment affects humans physically, psychologically, and cognitively. One reference Goldhagen utilizes is Brain Landscape: The Coexistence of Neuroscience and Architecture (published in 2008) by John P. Eberhard, which serves “as an intellectual bridge between architectural practice and neuroscience research.”
Along with specific data on attributes to the elements of the built environment, there is growing evidence of psychological damage from poorly designed urban environments. In the article called City Living Marks the Brain by Alison Abbott, she suggests people raised in cities have greater stress leading to greater occurrences of mental disorders. She states: “This 'social stress' activated many brain areas, two of them specifically correlated with the volunteers' history of urban living. The amygdala, which processes emotion, was activated only in people currently living in a city. And the cingulate cortex, which helps to regulate the amygdala and processes negative emotions, responded more strongly in those brought up in cities than in those who grew up in towns or rural areas.” She cites a Danish study that showed people who grew up in larger cities had a higher rate of schizophrenia.
In the article “The Hidden Ways that Architecture Affects how You Feel” from 2017 by Michael Bond furthers Abbott’s work by tying it to the studies of others such as Colin Ellard:
One of Ellard’s most consistent findings is that people are strongly affected by building façades. If the façade is complex and interesting, it affects people in a positive way; negatively if it is simple and monotonous. For example, when he walked a group of subjects past the long, smoked-glass frontage of a Whole Foods store in Lower Manhattan, their arousal and mood states took a dive, according to the wristband readings and on-the-spot emotion surveys. They also quickened their pace as if to hurry out of the dead zone. They picked up considerably when they reached a stretch of restaurants and stores, where (not surprisingly) they reported feeling a lot more lively and engaged.
There appears to be a very real and quantifiable connection between the built environment and human health. It is time people start paying more attention to the science and history behind good design.
Cathedral in Cologne, Germany; photo by Matthew Salenger
Five Factors of a Good Project:
What defines a good project? I’ve looked at several articles and books that try to pin down what makes a successful building or design. You may peruse such readings here, here, or here. Also, this from critic Aaron Betsky:
“If a new building is absolutely necessary, it should be good. It should work well and answer all codes, but that is only the beginning point. It should use minimal amounts of energy both in construction and in use. It should offer spaces that do not imprison and pigeonhole us. It should enhance its site. It should be beautiful…I believe that architecture can make our human-created world better. It can make it better in a social and an environmental sense. It can create spaces that are open, accessible, and sustainable. It can create the stages on which we can act out the roles we feel are ours to play with those we recognize as our fellow actors. Architecture should be neither weird nor boring, neither alien nor alienating, neither wasteful nor wanting in the qualities that make us human. It should be good.”
What ingredients go into a building or place within the built environment that allows it to be widely loved over a great deal of time? These are five factors I believe contribute to truly good projects:
1. Beauty
In all the readings and definitions of the term, Beauty is hard to pin down. Hence the idea it must only be “in the eye of the beholder,” and not universal. That will always be at least partially true. Think of a favorite movie star or singer you find most attractive. Most likely you have a friend with a different opinion on that person. Beauty can also be subject to trends or environment. Though, concerning the built & natural environment, there is some evidence on why humans consider a design or place beautiful. And some may even be fairly universal. There was a study conducted in the mid 1990’s by two artists (Vitaly Komar & Alex Melamid) and a market research firm (Martila & Kiley, inc) intended to find out if there was a true “people’s art.” What they found is that people all over the world, China, Kenya, Iceland, USA, etc, gravitated towards very similar images. Those images included mountains, greenery, calm skies, animals, water, and food baring landscapes.
The explanation for this is simple, but wordy. You can read about it at length in The Art Instinct by Denis Dutton. The short version is: We all are attracted to places that are safe and have an abundance of what keeps us healthy; Food, water, calm weather, verdant landscape with places to hid from danger; Such environments are attractive to us because of how we evolved as humans.
The Komar and Melamid experiment dovetails well with Biophilic Design and recent scientific studies of how our bodies and minds react to certain environments. The findings of the studies on how certain spatial attributes lower blood pressure may, also, be based on human evolution. Have you ever been mesmerized looking at a campfire? That could be based in human connections to millions of years of evolution where our health and safety partially relied on the presence of fire. Dutton provides an analogy for this with the example of European pigeons in snake-free New Zealand that are still afraid of snakes even though generations of birds there have not seen a snake in two centuries. Some of human evolution appears to remain with us for a very long time.
William Browning of Terrapin Bright Green says “Biophilia is humankind’s innate biological connection with nature.” And what makes Biophilic Design compelling beyond the scientific biological studies are the economic lessons. In The Economics of Biophilia, Terrapin Bright Green provides data to show that retail stores that incorporate biophilia have higher sales and can charge more than stores that do not. They present data that schools built incorporating biophilia have higher test scores; Office spaces that incorporate biophilia have higher rates of employee retention and lower absenteeism; Health care facilities with biophilia have faster rates for healing; and onward.
It seems there is something very important regarding a connection with nature to human beings that is being ignored far too often in the built environment. The studies Terrapin Bright Green cite also show people are not just healthier in spaces that incorporate nature, they are also happier. In other words, biophilia is beautiful to people. No building or place is well loved over a great deal of time that is not beautiful in some way. And many of the great buildings we love incorporate Biophilic Design. There is also growing scientific evidence suggesting how to provide “universal” beauty in design. We should pay attention to it.
2. Emotionally resonant & memorable
While something really beautiful will often stir emotions and create a memorable experience, I separate this aspect of good buildings and places mentioned in the last section because it has different characteristics beyond beauty. For instance, there are restaurants I have frequented that are not necessarily beautiful to behold, but still enabled a good time or experience that stuck with me. Those experiences made me want to go back many times, endearing me to the place over time.
Another example may be buildings from a beloved time period. There are buildings that some historic preservationists desperately try to protect, even though they are not good examples of architecture from the period, and/or have become problematic in their current situation. The buildings may even be down right ugly by most standards- yet people will rally to save such places. People may create emotional attachments to places because of nostalgia and/or life-experiences. Those attachments may go beyond logic or reason and can be very powerful.
The question is how to create emotionally resonant buildings and places. Both of the major mentors in my life (Eddie Jones, Götz Stöckmann) talk about the importance of creating memorable buildings and spaces. I believe the thinking is along the lines of: If a design creates a strong reaction in someone, they will think about it, dwell in it longer, and form a bond with it. While I have not found scientific evidence to prove this, I have experienced it. Though I will add, sometimes “memorable” projects have the opposite effect. The Denver Art Museum is a negative example of this for me, whereas the Kimball Art Museum is memorable in a massively positive way for me. Both are memorable- though the former feels like it is trying too hard to be memorable via only one sense (visually), whereas the latter excites many of my senses, which may be the difference.
Close your eyes and place yourself in spaces and situations that carry emotion and memory for you, and see how many senses are awoken for you in those spaces. Perhaps you find a connection between emotion/memory and sensory perception.
3. Endurance to remain loved over time:
Most of the buildings I can think of that have remained widely regarded as “important” works, through the decades and centuries, adhere to these three standards:
a. Strength-clarity of vision
b. Well-made / crafted
c. Intentional in all portions
I think of the Coliseum in Rome, Queen Hatshepsut Palace, Beijing’s Forbidden City, Machu Picchu, and also newer classics such as the Eames House in Pacific Palisades and Luis Barragan’s home in Mexico City. All have a strength and clarity of vision, are exceptionally well crafted, with each portion working in concert with the rest to create a palpable whole.
There are always exceptions, though. Soleri’s Cosanti and Wright’s Taliesin West were built by “amateurs,” and look the part, ie: not expertly well crafted. Cosanti in particular is amazingly shabby when you compare it to, say, Lloyds of London by The Rogers Partnership. Though to physically be at Cosanti is special and comforting to me. I’ve never known anyone to go there and say they didn’t enjoy it. Having said that, how long it endures will be left to posterity. I would not be hugely surprised if it simply fell to ruin and was abandoned or torn down eventually. I can imagine the lower quality of construction may be part of its demise- after all, great expense to repair poor construction is definitely a reason many projects do not stand the test of time. Conversely, the amount of money that can be raised to repair or keep up a structure does signal a certain level of love for the project. Think of Notre Dame in Paris, with its $800m repair costs.
4. Functionality:
Good buildings that last and are loved generally function well- either as intended or as, say, a museum or artifact. Gaudi’s ongoing La Sagrada Familia functions in both capacities. One has to believe all of Antonio Gaudi’s work will always be loved. His body of work would also seem to prove the value of several Biophilic Design’s principals and patterns.
Though functionality can be thought of in multiple ways, such as:
a. Accessible (functionally, visibly, conceptually, and hopefully includes affordability)
b. Thoughtful – that each portion has apparently been considered (includes ergonomic)
c. Community contributing
Beyond simply being useful, the best buildings and places function at various levels. If one thinks of a desk, it must not be too short or too tall for its function. Buildings might be thought of as huge pieces of furniture, meant to allow people to fulfill tasks. If a bedroom is uncomfortable, it has failed its purpose. Though architects have sometimes abandoned such functions. For example, Peter Eisenman purposefully made spaces uncomfortable, such as with the infamous House VI, where the function was intentionally ignored. It is not a house to be lived in, but rather owned as conceptual art. It is an interesting exercise, and will likely be remembered past the architect’s lifetime. Though I imagine the house itself may cease to exist- unless it provides its own financial viability in its existence.
While direct function is important, equally a good building or project will work well with its community. Buildings that create civic pride, identity, and are easy for people to appreciate contribute to their communities, and in doing endear themselves to the people that use them. A great example is the Phoenix Central Library by Will Bruder with Wendell Burnett and DWL. One example of good civic design this building achieved is to have two entrances on flanking sides- both from the parking area and from the busy Central Avenue (with the hope of collecting foot traffic one day). They achieved this by funneling people from both sides to a central point near the center of the building, allowing efficient security to monitor people entering- though one does not notice being surveilled. It is a nifty device. From there, the glass elevators travelling vertically through a full-height five-story atrium are visible, allowing one to know exactly where to head next. Navigating through the large building is ridiculously easy. Every detail along the way is charming and well executed. It functions beautifully. The exterior cuts a strong form right at the center of town, like a man-made desert “Mesa”. It is simple, yet textured. It is a box, yet is curved and has a lot of visual and spatial depth. It stands as a point of pride for a growing city with its thoughtful use of corrugated copper skin, copper being one of the “Five C’s” of the State of Arizona. Though it is only about 25 years old, it feels like a building that will exist for a very long time.
Of these three aspects, accessibility is the most complex to cover. As pointed out in the paragraph above, civic buildings should be easy to enter. That is what enables function. Though even private buildings that are in a community should be accessible by its audience- if not always physically. Surely they should be visually and/or conceptually legible or enjoyable. That is not always the case. I think of the example of Sir Norman Foster’s Faber and Dumas office building, with its ceaseless smooth black reflective skin from sidewalk to parapet. While Foster is an important architect by nearly any criteria, this building hardly contributes to its urban environment. There is no street activation and the feel of being next to the structure is very cold. The concept for the black glass façade was that it would reflect its surroundings, and thereby become part of those surroundings. Though this ignores so much of what we know about creating good urban environments- thanks to Jane Jacobs and later Jeff Speck. The building does not contribute to street life, provides no face of its own to the public, provides false spatial depth, and contains no tactile materiality. It is mostly inaccessible. Compare that to Gaudi’s work, mentioned previously. Which building would you rather walk next to on the street?
Accessibility may also be measured by affordability. Great design only for the wealthy may not stand the test of time. Though the same could be said for poorly designed mass housing, whether it is Levittown or Pruitt-Igoe, the latter of which failed because of more than just architecture and is a true learning lesson far beyond design. But this text is about design, so we will stay on point… Pruitt-Igoe development was accessible from a financial standpoint, and functional to live in, and also was not beautiful, memorable, or emotionally resonant. It was overly “efficient” in its production, like most social housing from that time period.
There are, however, good examples of social housing, unfortunately mostly outside of the USA. There is a push to revive public housing in America, but that is often a hard sell in these times. If we are to solve the housing crisis, we need solutions that serve as shining examples of success. Such projects would do well to follow these five rules, pick the right planners and architects, follow the best possible process that includes the future internal community as well as its external populous. After all, all design projects are nested within a larger whole or community, and should include that populous in the design process.
5. “Sustainability”
Last but not least, all projects should now be “sustainable”- a word I put in quotes because I harbor strong distaste for the term in the context of environmental awareness. “Sustainable” suggests a status-quo. It sounds boring and is not accurate for our situation. We need to be regenerating and co-evolving with the environment, righting our wrongs but also improving it’s potential, with more vitality than it currently has. The word “sustainable” is hardly a call to action. And we really need a massive call to action to everyone in the world. We cannot get very far without first ridding the world of political untruths and never-ending power struggles. You may feel this is an unrealistic goal- though if we do not talk about the potential arising out of our species finally growing up we will never achieve it.
All projects now need to be doing all they can towards improving the environment. Carbon, biodiversity, water recharge, etc- all of it, all of the planetary boundaries. I make no secret of my alignment with the Living Building Challenge (and accompanying other challenges and programs) because I see it as the most thoughtful and thorough system to follow. Though the world could also really use more Regenerative Practitioners as well. (I am attempting to become one, and invite you to join in.)
To return to where I started- inspired by vali homes’ Five Factors for a Good Building- I will leave the building science of their factors to their good work. Look to them to learn more on the issues they focus on:
a. comfort & health
b. efficiency & renewables
c. durability & resiliency
d. social equity & embodied injustice
e. lifecycle carbon impact
Hope Springs Eternal (A Conclusion):
As humans, we have constantly strived for better lives. Along the way we have left behind the some of the most important aspects (Humanity and working in concert with our environment) of what makes for the best form of living.
As humans, we have been so focused on efficiency- for hundreds of years. The built environment is too often the urban equivalent of fast food: devoid of what nurtures us.
The good news is there is rapidly growing evidence on how to bring humanity & the environment back into health and into our lives. And; more good news! There are more projects everyday that show the best ways to achieve this, which become case studies and guides for more projects.
Is it difficult to achieve a truly “good” project based on this text’s hypothesis? Currently the answer is probably “yes,” but the process of working towards it are so much more interesting and rewarding than the status quo. The end results are too.