Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives Hardcover – April 11, 2017

Of all the factors that impact our lives in major ways, with ripple effects into all corners of human existence, the question of how we build our built environment receives impressively little attention. We’re far more likely to hear what can be done with sleep, diet, switching to a civilized healthcare system, emphasizing education rather than incarceration, creating a sustainable local economy, or investing in trains instead of wars. OK, you won’t hear much about that last one, but you’ll hear even less about the impact of architecture on your physical and mental health.Sarah Williams Goldhagen’s book, Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives makes the case that buildings and urban spaces impact us whether we pay any attention to them or not — and impact us for the worse because we pay so little attention. She cites studies to document that people are actually more open to creative new concepts when they are in rooms with higher ceilings, that good design can create positive emotions and consequently positive human relations, can improve our physical health, childhood development, intelligence, life expectancy, and creativity.The elements of a built environment that Goldhagen points to as impacting these things include visual elements, color, light, and the form of a structure, but also sound, smell, texture, materials, temperatures, incorporation of nature, and natural materials and forms, integration of architecture with landscape design, and the degree of crowding or lack thereof.While a shack built of found materials in the median of a highway can be improved only so much, and a McMansion designed by a realtor can be only so horrible, Goldhagen makes a case that what she is advocating is not as much a question of cost as one might think, that better designs can cost as little as worse ones in many cases, and that today’s technologies make it far easier than it used to be to create buildings with well-designed and curving and irregular shapes rather than simple boxes.It seems to me that we ought to be struck by and resentful of the fact that most new automobiles are created with well-designed and complex forms, while a Frank Gehry building still stands out as a sort of freak creation in the realm of permanent structures. There are many car bodies that, if I could enlarge them to the proper scale, I would much rather live or work in than in most buildings being put up in U.S. cities, towns, and sprawl. Goldhagen’s book provides numerous examples of good and bad design from around the world.What does she propose that we do about it? She suggests that everything built be designed by a properly trained designer — a project that certainly cries out for an organization to get behind it and begin drafting legislation, codes, and standards. She also proposes that the lessons in her book be taught in design schools, and that the public at large learn these lessons so as to overcome the common preference for the familiar, which Goldhagen argues can sometimes override a preference for the demonstrably better.Goldhagen’s arguments claim to rest on a body of knowledge that I lack any ability to judge because it’s neuroscience and I’m not a neuroscientist. However, I will dare to state what seems available to the outsider, namely that references to neuroscience are often both less necessary and less definitive than is imagined — and that seems to be the case here.I think neuroscience is less necessary here than Goldhagen seems to believe, because the impact of the built environment is less inaccessible to our conscious minds than Goldhagen at times suggests. Goldhagen refers to “the cognitive revolution’s complete rethinking of human experience” before citing numerous examples of past architects apparently already understanding the future “revolution.” Our “surroundings,” she writes, “affect us much more viscerally and profoundly than we could possibly be aware of, because most of our cognitions, including those about where we are, happen outside our conscious awareness.” But that concept is not strictly new, and people’s levels of awareness of how the physical world is impacting them seems to vary a great deal, both from person to person and from moment to moment.Alvar Aalto, Goldhagen writes, “intuited” that looking at a handrail made of wood can create a feeling of warmth. Because he didn’t observe this thought in a brain under a microscope, he merely “intuited” it in his own brain. Frank Lloyd Wright had similar intuitions about hexagonal spaces, Goldhagen tells us.Many people, Goldhagen writes, dislike Yale’s Art and Architecture building because they “nonconsciously” imagine that its rough surfaces would hurt if brushed up against. That hardly strikes me as a thought that no one could become conscious of — and certainly not after Goldhagen has pointed it out. I also doubt she found it in a laboratory. Similary, she writes that visitors to a church or a hotel may never become consciously aware of the sounds their feet are making because of the material chosen for the floor. Then again, they may.I don’t mean to discount Goldhagen’s insights, but I’d like to see people encouraged to expand their awareness, more than to study the brain’s mysteries as taught to them by scientists. Those teachings may be less decisive than is often imagined. To treat a manner in which people experience the world as permanent simply because some of the locations in which it occurs in their brains have been identified, seems like a fallacy to me. Experiences change, and so does brain activity.Richard Neutra’s theory about how signs of a building’s construction will be experienced by those inhabiting the finished project is “all but confirmed” by the discovery of certain neurons, Golhagen believes. But wasn’t the theory confirmed by Neutra’s clients? And didn’t we know their experience was happening in their brains, as opposed to in some other organ, even prior to naming some neurons?We’re supposed to learn, as if brand new knowledge, from the “cognitive revolution” that surfaces and materials impact our “nonconscious and conscious cognitions about the built environment.” Fine. You’ll get no argument from me, primarily because I have to run change my kid’s diaper because he has no idea why he’s grumpy. Yes, of course, it’s more complex than that example, I just think there’s a little hyping being added to the insights.Now, to a more serious problem. Goldhagen uses predictions of population growth and urbanization to predict that by 2050 an additional 2.4 billion people will need spaces built for them to live and work in. I find it hard to believe that any quality of design of which this species is capable can make that level of growth survivable. The accompanying destruction of ecosystems and climate seems insurmountable. That’s no argument for not trying to do the very best job of it possible, with an emphasis on the least damaging construction as well as on the best aesthetics. But it is an argument for putting a huge emphasis on preventing that population expansion.Photo: Scottish Parliament.

I cannot yet comment on the ideas in this book as I just received it, however I did want to comment on the physical book, itself, as I had some internal debate as to whether to get the book in hardcover or Kindle format. The physical dimensions and shipping weight are listed, but the numbers may not immediately tell you that the book feels heavy for its size - it does. The paper my parents' printing business has that feels most similar to that in the book is HP 150 gsm matte brochure paper. It has got that white, clay impregnated look of paper on which one prints images, and the same paper was used both for the text and the images. The printed words come across as matte, but there's enough clay that the photos have a semi-gloss, lustre look to them. The bulk of the text is in black, with chapter and section headings in blue. All the text on the dust jacket, page headings, and photo captions are sans serif, but main text uses a serif font that I find quite readable. The main text ends on page 292, followed by Acknowledgments ending on 297, image credits ending on 307, notes (290 of them) ending on 335, and an index ending on 347. In favor of the kindle version is that all the notes will likely come to you rather than vice versa. Also, the yellow head in the middle of the dust jacket is a cutout, which will undoubtably suck if you have a tight bookshelf. I'm sure the publisher could describe the physical book more accurately than I have. I'm a little bit surprised that they haven't.

This is a book about architecture that gets you thinking about the built environment around us, and how that built environment affects us mentally. I was both surprised and pleased to find a little bit of actual neuroscience behind this book, though written in a way you don't need an MD to get it. The book introduces us to fascinating way of seeing the world and makes us want to change things.

This brilliant book opened my eyes to the world around me and helped me see my environment in new ways. Goldhagen is advocating for better design, design that is more human-centric and connects us to nature. She's a former professor at Harvard Graduate School of Design and a well-known architecture critic, and she has spent her entire life trying to understand the process by which the built environment affects us emotionally and psychologically. Here she is writing for a general audience, and sharing what she has learned during a lifetime of interdisciplinary exploration with people like me, who do not have a background in art or design or architecture, but who are curious to learn about how our surroundings affect our lives. Imagine the treat of being able to go on a tour of the world with a guide who is so smart, insightful, entertaining, witty, deeply informed, and passionate about her subject. For what it's worth, this is also a beautifully produced book with gorgeous illustrations. It's a book I will save and treasure, and go back to again and again. I wish I could give it more stars.

Welcome to your world is an intriguing book which explores how the environment we build around us affects us, as well as how we navigate that reality. What I find really fascinating is how the author integrates cognitive and bodily experiences into the book so that we're not just looking at the environment, but also our own place in space. If you want to understand space, building designs, or how you navigate the world around this is an excellent book to read because it provides you a way to look at your environment from a unique perspective and consider how you situate yourself in the world around you as well as how bring good design into your life and improve your circumstances as a result.

Great package and very Soon.

Arrived as described.

Thanks!

great book which talks about experiencing architecture and how buildings trigger and satisfy certain emotions

Die Autorin erhofft sich für die Zukunft eine Verbesserung der Qualität von Architektur durch jüngste Erkenntnisse aus den Neurowissenschaften und kognitiver Soziologie und dgl.. Populärwissenschaftlich geschrieben versammelt es Studienergebnisse, wie etwa, dass bettlägerige Kranke mit Blick ins Grüne schneller gesund werden, dass bestimmte Raumfarben beruhigende Wirkung auf den Menschen haben, Diagonalen Unruhe erzeugen etc.. Die Autorin meint, dass durch die Verwissenschaftlichung derartiger Wirkungszusammenhänge zwischen Mensch und Architektur der Stellenwert von Architekturqualitität in Zukunft steigen und sich eher gegen die weitverbreitete Ignoranz der Auftraggeber oder das reine Profitstreben wird durchsetzen lassen. Das ist in der Tat zu hoffen. Leider bleibt das Buch sehr an der Oberfläche und setzt sich selbst dem Vorwurf des rein Subjektiven aus. Goldhagens Beispiele einer gelungenen Architektur (schottisches Parlament) oder grandios misslungenen Architektur (Holocaust-Denkmal) könnte man ebensogut umgekehrt einordnen. Allein dies lässt an der objektiven Aussagekraft der vermeintlich neuen wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse zweifeln. Es fehlt aber insbesondere auch die Auswertung historischer Erfahrungen. Die Bedeutung von Materialien und Oberflächen für das Wohlbefinden des Menschen wurde bereits - wahrscheinlich auch nicht zum ersten Mal - vom Werkbund erkannt. Heinrich Zille wusste, dass man mit Wohnungen Menschen töten kann. Die Farbenlehren von Goethe und Itten sind uralt. Das Scheitern des Bauhauses am vom Publikum einstweilen immer noch vorgezogenen Heimatstil lässt vielerlei Schlussfolgerungen zu, die nicht ignoriert werden können, genauso der Umstand, dass bereits vor 500 Jahren die Augsburger Fugger Reformhäuser für ärmere Augsburger Bürger errichteten, die heute noch stehen und begehrt sind. Wer aus einem anderen Land als Deutschland kommt, kennt sicher unzählige weitere historische Beispiele, wie bereits vor Jahrhunderten Architektur mit Sensibilität für die Wirkungen auf den Menschen realisiert wurde, zugleich aber stets das Bauen je nach Zeitgeschmack und gesellschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen vorherrschend blieb. Andererseits zeit die Geschichte auch, dass viele gut gemeinte und dem Menschen ausdrücklich zugewandte Städtebau-/Architekturkonzepte wie etwa der Erreichung einer durchgrünten Stadt durch Schaffung von Hochhauslandschaften inmitten von weitläufigen Grünflächen anstelle der früheren Blockrandbebebauung bei Beibehaltung der ursprünglichen Bevölkerungsdichte (Beispiel Berliner Hansaviertel) schlichtweg vom Menschen nie wirklich angenommen worden sind, obwohl sie bis heute theoretisch nicht widerlegt sind.Das imm Schlusskapitel geäußerte Vertrauen der Autorin in obligatorische bauvorbereitende (Design-)Expertengremien unter Hinweis auf das Beispiel Niederlande wäre in jedem Falle noch zu konfrontieren mit den historischen Erfahrungen, mit der Bedeutung der Architekturmoden und nicht zuletzt mit den eigentlich entscheidenden, zugleich ganz profanen praktischen Fragen im Alltag: Wie werden die sich ergebenden Zielkonflikte tatsächlich aufgelöst? Wer entscheidet, was als schön zu gelten hat? Wer soll das alles bezahlen?Ich hätte mir auch mehr Denkanstöße gewünscht, etwa zu denkbaren Verbesserungen bei der Visualisierung und Fühlbarmachung von Architekturmodellen, für den gesetzgeberischen Rahmen der allgemeinen Städtebauplanung, für die konkrete Rolle des Architekten etwa bei der Ökonomisierung der Entwurfsprozesse (Stichwort Fertighaus und Investorenarchitektur, Umnutzungskonzepte etc.), die stärkere Verankerung des Gemeinwohlgedankens bei der Baurealisierung etc. Nicht einmal Ansätze dazu findet man.Insgesamt aber auf jeden Fall ein ehrliches und engagiertes, in jeder Hinsicht gut gemeintes Buch. Abschließend entschuldigung für diese respektlose Rezension der Publikation einer Harvard-Professorin, aber das ist gelebte Demokratie.