Can the Urban Environment Reinforce Certain Psychological States?

Part 2
Lowenstein and Schkade in an essay on the difficulty of perceiving “hot” emotions in “cold” states and vice versa, in anticipating future emotion, suggest that emotions live in state dependent memory. Perhaps a tool of the architect, urban planner and landscape architect can be to anticipate the kinds of emotions a given environment is likely to nurture. The emotional quality an environment evokes for its users is as important to recognize and anticipate as its visual and utilitarian impact.

Robert M. Pirsig, in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, utilizes two very poignant icons to illustrate this experience we all tend to know and repress. The first is the highway traffic jam, with the isolated, miserable looking faces in each of the autos; the second is the constant drip-drip-drip of a faucet needing repair. We suppress these events from our consciousness, having more important things to do, more desirable experiences to consume. The water faucet example is reminiscent of old Chinese water torture sequences on television from the 50's and early 60's, where the subject eventually goes mad. Michael Douglas best represents the coming apart of a businessman stuck in traffic in the film Falling Down.

Evidence suggests such background stress lowers headroom and decreases tolerance. Caspi, Bolger and Eckenrode state: “micro-stressors, acting cumulatively, and in the relative absence of compensatory experiences, can be potent sources of stress”. The hinge here is “compensatory experiences”. In performance cognitive management, you might imagine doing intense creative work in the morning, something very synthesis based. The flow of ideas and associations may peak, but then the cognitive function fatigues, and needs to recycle. A relaxing and less cognitively busy environment can recuperate the cognitive function, refreshing the mind for the afternoon. This jibes well for me with the concept of calming the mind so that it can regenerate and prepare to perform in the next session.

Many artists and creative personalities have remarked that meditation offers such regeneration and centering. More of us might recognize the restorative potential of environments. Spend 20 minutes in an environment where you anticipate feelings of wellbeing, experience feelings of wellbeing, and leave remarking on how you enjoy the environment, and what do you get?

Imagine creating a diversity of urban environments that offer regenerative moments from mundane task sessions and heated decision-making events. I imagine myself at the City Library in downtown Salt Lake City, around the City/County Building and its great canopy of trees, Sugarhouse or Liberty Park where nature takes precedence over the built environment. Whether developing micro-environments or districts, having an idea of their impact on emotional wellbeing and cognitive refreshment—especially in a dense urban setting—seems valuable for sustainable living. What are your thoughts?