Stop boring building ‘blandemic’, says campaign

A campaign has been launched to stop the spread of boring buildings. The Humanise campaign, led by architect Thomas Heatherwick, cites studies which show that being surrounded by dull, flat, dreary buildings which lack visual complexity increases cortisol levels, causing higher levels of stress. Heatherwick is also calling on the public to send him photographs of particularly stultifying structures in their area to help him create a British “Boring Building Index”. Research from Thinks Insight shows that 76% of people in the UK believe that buildings have an impact on their mental health. Hetherwick said: “We have spent 100 years making buildings that few people love. They get demolished and replaced, and demolished and replaced, over and over again because nobody cares. And that generates extraordinary waste and massive carbon emissions. We need planners to encourage less sterile, more interesting buildings.” In the UK, 50,000 buildings are knocked down annually, generating 126m tonnes of waste. A new report from New Economics Foundation has brought together all the available evidence linking building design to health and wellbeing. Miatta Fahnbulleh, chief executive of the New Economics Foundation, said: “When politicians talk about building more houses, they also need to think about what it’s going to feel like to live there. We now know that building design affects everything from stress levels to trust, people’s happiness and their physical and mental health. Getting this right is a chance to boost the wellbeing of the UK. It would enrich our world.” The NEF data shows that 52% of the public actively want to get involved in how buildings look in their area, while 65% say it is important that new buildings look interesting on the outside. The artist Grayson Perry, who is supporting the Humanise campaign, said: “This echoes many things I find myself saying as I travel round the country. How the hell did that monstrosity get built? Why is this place so depressing? Why is so much of the built environment so boring?” The campaign is accompanied by a new book by Hetherwick, published by Penguin, called Humanise – A Maker’s Guide to Building Our World. Perry added: “This book will wind up quite a few architects and developers who labour under the delusion that they are the adults in the room. Good. These people need to develop some compassion for the people who have to live with their joyless, bland, unlovable creations. It’s a super accessible guide as to why we shouldn’t put up with soulless buildings and how we can change that.” The campaign has put forward three core mantras for planners and developers who want to help solve this “blandemic”. Emotion as a function. Accept that how people feel about a building is a critical part of its function. 1,000-year thinking. Design buildings with the hope and expectation that they will last 1,000 years. Prioritise door distance. Concentrate a building’s interesting qualities at the two-metre door distance. To send feedback, e-mail piers.wehner@eg.co.uk or tweet @PiersWehner or @EGPropertyNews Photo by Chameleons Eye/Shutterstock