Humans crave interaction and belonging — yet many of the built environments we’ve created are failing to meet these needs.

As curators of the built environment we need to consider the creation of inclusive spaces that foster connection. Too often we design with a one-size-fits all approach, rather than empowering individuals with diverse needs to participate in ways that work for them.

Loneliness is a cause for great current and future concern within New Zealand with 16.6% of the population aged 15 and over reporting feeling lonely all, most or some of the time. Social isolation can be as damaging to our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and a meta-analysis by Brigham Young University of 148 health studies found that feelings of loneliness increase mortality risk by 26%, while social isolation and living alone increased it by 29% and 32% respectively.

To address this, WSP has partnered with the Helen Clark Foundation to produce a report that looks at the issue of loneliness and recommends policy planks that allow social connection to thrive in Aotearoa.

Alongside this, WSP experts have explored their own disciplines to challenge traditional thinking. The Designing out Loneliness series is the result.

Neighbourhoods that are designed for neighbourly interactions, through front porches built close to the street, outdoor common areas, urban gardens, and nice walking paths, enhance our likelihood of greater social connection. Lendlease, a multinational construction, property and infrastructure company, is considering how they can design loneliness out of their developments, and is already defining communal spaces as essential in their developments.

If seniors live alone for longer, they’ll need to take greater risks to improve their confidence, in order to enhance activity levels and reduce injuries. There’s a growing movement to reintroduce element of risk into children’s playgrounds. Older adults can benefit from similar thinking, hence the increase in elderly playgrounds/obstacle courses, offered in the Netherlands, and agility / fall prevention classes offered in Ontario.

Spending time in a forest increases natural killer cells by up to 50%. Natural killer cells are a lymphocyte that kill tumour and virus-infected cells and are also associated with reduced depression. Being near or seeing a body of water can also calm us.

Exercise is one of the most important ways we can protect our mental health; it enhances five of the neurotransmitters that play a role in depression (serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, glutamate, gamma-aminobutyric acid). When facilities are close, attractive and safe, people are twice as likely to exercise – and boost their neurotransmitters..

Low accessibility to employment, education and public services leads to poor mental health. Google recently launched “wheelchair accessible” routes to navigate transit systems. This information helps wheelchair users plan their routes ahead – and gives them the confidence to get out of the house in the first place.

Transit provides a more affordable way for people to access employment, education and leisure opportunities. But it’s not enough just to provide the service in the right place; the design of stations, stops and vehicles matters too.

Providing affordable housing closer to relevant job, education and leisure opportunities reduces important stressors.

ENSURE ACCESS TO ATTRACTIVE, SAFE, NEARBY EXERCISE FACILITIES

FOREST AND WATER

RISKY ACTIVITY

DESIGNING LONELINESS
OUT OF THE BUILT
ENVIRONMENT

As architects we know our practice has the ability to influence human behaviour and emotion, and positively affect mental wellbeing and alleviate experiences of loneliness.

That’s why WSP partnered with the Victoria University Wellington School of Architecture to co-fund a research paper. This research, carried out by Anya Seth and supervised by Dr Jan Smitheram, addresses the design of university halls of residence.

Specifically, it questions how the psychological knowledge of social isolation and loneliness, as well as existing student accommodation typologies, can be used collectively to establish a design framework for university halls of residence that respond to improving the community living experience for students.

Ultimately it looked at how the community living experience can be improved for students in order to support wellbeing and belonging.

Many universities encourage first-year students to stay within a hall of residence, highlighting it as a safe, supportive and social student experience.

Although this transition from family home to student accommodation is often viewed as a positive opportunity for individual development and personal growth, it can be a challenging time.

While some can thrive when they leave the family residence, issues can often emerge due to individual feeling displaced from their initial source of safety, security and identity to support them. It’s in this change that students are confronted with a new set of social and intellectual challenges, which may raise questions about who they are and how they see themselves.

Given this, it stands to reason that the accommodation they enter should support their wellbeing on this transition and provide opportunities for social connections to create a sense of belonging and community.

What we know is that it’s quite common in New Zealand for universities to take over an old office building and retrofit it for accommodation. From one perspective this makes absolute sense however, from a design approach, it is repurposing space that was designed with an entirely different function in mind. 

Within New Zealand there’s a disheartening and growing representation of youth experiencing feelings of social isolation and loneliness - an issue commonly only recognised after the culmination of its consequences occur. WSP Architect Carinnya Feaunati looks at the role of design in student accommodation.

What the research identifies is a framework that considers wellbeing of residents. It addresses the questions we should be asking - where are the common spaces for students to gather? How do the corridors to their rooms look? Is it vibrant and inspiring or completely dull? Is there some way to activate their view to nature or activate their emotions by passing through a common space? Are there opportunities for conversation?

The research has started to identify this by outlining design attributes for different areas of the halls of residence. This includes where they are located, spaces to socialise, eat, study and sleep.

Although the research covered aspect of the theoretical and practical literature, and physical applications relating to supporting connection in student accommodation, it’s only the beginning.

Download the PDF overview of Alone Together: Designing out social isolation and loneliness in student accommodation

Carinnya Feaunati,
Architectural Graduate

More than anything, it starts a conversation about the role architecture plays in facilitating wellbeing through a student-orientated lens. There’s no doubt that the built environment influences the way we feel, behave, act and think. As practitioners we must design the built environment to appropriately support the journey of connecting to ourselves, to others and our community - it’s these relationships that allow us to thrive

ACCOMMODATION 

DESIGNING LONELINESS

OUT OF STUDENT 

The history of urban planning highlights how built environments in Aotearoa fail to facilitate social interactions. For instance, urban planning during the 20^th century in America was greatly influenced by automobile movement. Early examples of this urban planning include Frank Lloyd Wright’s Broadacre City project, which became the traditional American suburb (and subsequently ours), driving people out of cities and into sprawling and disconnected suburbs. Additionally, Robert Moses promoted the development of highways, which severed viable and lively existing urban communities and neighbourhoods.

Today the movement of the car today still shapes and severs the built environment. As a result we’ve inherited a legacy of poor integration and limited access to surrounding land uses, inadequate pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, and a lack of inviting social spaces.

The built environment of the neighbourhoods we live in either enables or hinders social interactions. With social isolation and loneliness, a growing trend, Jack Earl WSP Urban Designer, looks at new approaches to foster connection. 

CHANGE FOR GOOD
Social interactions within built environments can be facilitated by providing quality spaces, connected networks and accessible activities/uses that allow people to casually and safely, interact or bump into each other. These can be planned and designed  through effective community engagement and co-design, temporal interventions that reallocate road space from the car to people places, safe, connected and accessible public open spaces and street networks, residential density and mixed-use developments that are within proximity of public transport and active mode transport options. Places that can facilitate such interactions, are more likely to expand social relationships between individuals and stimulate an overall sense of community.

In contrast to traditional suburban areas that rely on a car to access open spaces, schools, shopping and work, Hobsonville Point in Auckland offers a beacon of hope. The area has a mix of medium and high density living and has been deliberately designed to promote community interaction so that it's easy to get to know neighbours. A 2019 National Science Challenge paper, Living at Density in Hobsonville Point: Resident Perceptions, found that residents expressed a strong sense of community in Hobsonville Point, well matched to the vision of creating a strong and vibrant community. Researchers found that living at higher density in Hobsonville Point contributed positively towards housing satisfaction, leading to strong feelings of wellbeing. Of special importance is the key role that the high-quality public spaces and amenities play in housing satisfaction.

Jack Earl
Urban Designer

CHANGING OUR APPROACH
Hobsonville Point is a modern example of facilitating natural social interactions within suburban greenfield development. 

However, the other great challenge is to facilitate social interactions within our existing built environments. 

These are often constrained and have historically been planned around the car. In my work I’ve been involved in retrofitting these environments to reconnect communities. 

Key to this is taking a holistic approach to planning and working to understand the core values of a place. 

This has allowed us to facilitate meaningful conversations about movement and place trade-offs to improve integration between transport and other functions.

URBAN PLANNING THAT INCLUDES MIXED LAND USES AND DENSITY
Compact, fine grained and mixed use neighbourhoods offer a wider range of possibilities when it comes to shops, amenities, local employment and residential living choice within the same local area. Additionally, site and building design should enhance our neighbourhoods by addressing the street, enabling passive surveillance for personal safety and providing for shared private spaces to further encourage social connectivity.

LIVELY PUBLIC SPACES
Secure, attractive, and active spaces provide focal points in the community where people can gather and interact. Pedestrian pocket parks and plazas are examples. The design of such spaces should also be responsive to local cultural context and aesthetically pleasing.

STREETS FOR PEOPLE
Safe, accessible and attractive streets for people of all ages and abilities includes well located pedestrian facilities such as seating, drinking fountains, attractive planting, public conveniences, wide footpaths, trees that provide shade, and integration with surrounding land uses.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTERACTIONS
The built environment can foster a sense of community through enabling day to day interaction between people, nature and other activities. This happens on streets and within shops, cafes, community buildings and public spaces. Planning and designing these holistically so walking and cycling to and between them is safe and convenient is key.

MULTI MODAL - NOT JUST A CAR
Encouraging active modes and public transport in our neighbourhoods rather than prioritising car movement can be achieved through better integrated land use planning and designing legible and logical connections to provide a high quality and safe user experience. Providing appropriate infrastructure such as bus shelters, physical cycleway buffers and accessible pedestrian crossings is also important.

ACCESS TO PARKS AND PUBLIC SPORT FACILITIES
Better accessibility to public spaces and facilities can result in greater likelihood of their use and thus to more social activity. Sports can assist in creating communities with high levels of positive social outcomes, which can make them more resilient to negative outcomes.

ENGAGEMENT IS KEY
Participation in the shaping of the built environment fosters feelings of empowerment and belonging

One project that stands out for me is the spatial framework for Greymouth’s CBD we carried out with the Grey District Council. 

Engagement with the local community revelated that 87% found the CBD uninviting, and 82% believed that the CBD didn’t reflect their identity. 

Our response was to balance movement and place in the CBD, we organised interventions within the spatial framework around a centrally located and connected public space. 

To maximise the public space, we transformed a typical road designed for the functions of a car, into a shared space environment.

The outcome is a 1750m2 high-quality public space where local people meet for lunch, where tourists engage, local food trucks operate, and the Council holds regular, well-attended events. 

Additionally, this public space has catalysed new cafes, jobs, refurbishment of heritage buildings, renewal of a hotel, and early plans for a cultural development.

PLANNING OUT
LONELINESS

The restrictions put in place to limit the spread of COVID-19 had the biggest impact on travel behaviour in decades. Seemingly overnight our roads and motorways were almost silenced, and streets became community places.

Even with the transition from full lockdown to the new normal, some of this has remained as workers continue to embrace working from home.

Stats NZ figures show that more than 40% of employed Kiwis did at least some of their work from home during the Covid-19 level 4 and level 3 lockdowns. And it looks set to continue post-pandemic with people finding the flexibility of skipping the daily commute or spending more time with whanau hard to let go of.

According to a University of Otago study 89% of those who worked from home wanted to continue post-lockdown, at least part-time.

This has had a positive impact on many communities as residents have more time to spend within the neighbourhood, freed from the grind of a daily commute. Parents are walking their children to school, walking to the local café to get a coffee, and seeing the faces in their community on a more regular basis.

As we look for ways to improve social connections and promote wellbeing, there’s opportunity in the post-pandemic environment for a travel mode shift away from private vehicle.

Amongst the upheaval COVID-19 has caused, small pockets of good have emerged – particularly at a community level. WSP Transport Technical Director Risto Jounila explores the opportunity to change our travel behaviour to boost wellbeing and reduce social isolation.

KNOW THY NEIGHBOUR

Nearly 50 years ago American urban designer and theorist Donald Appleyard published a study that showed a direct connection between traffic flow in a street and the number of neighbours known.

The study found that people living on a street with little traffic knew most of their neighbours and had many friends on the street. However, similar people living on an otherwise comparable street, but with heavy traffic, knew few people and had very few friends on the street. More detailed work published a decade later showed that the amount of traffic in the street outside their home also affected people’s living space – both the parts of their own home they could use comfortably, and the area of the street outside they considered to be ‘theirs’.

Other studies have shown that children on busier streets are less likely to be allowed to play in the streets, which was bad for both their mental and physical development.

Italian research of Urban Built Environment on mental health (Giulia Melis/2015) suggested that good accessibility to public transport, as well as a dense urban structure (versus sprawl), could contribute to reduced risk of depression, especially for women and elderly, by increasing opportunities to move around and have an active social life. So being active in your neighbourhood is vital for our wellbeing.

This graphic from Appleyard’s book provides an excellent visual representation of his research.

Jounila, Risto
Technical Director

SPARKING JOY

In our prioritisation of the car we’ve overlooked the considerable wellbeing benefits active modes of transport deliver. And these begin at a young age.

Swedish researcher Jessica Westman Trischler from Karlstad University has studied the correlation of school travel mode, satisfaction and cognitive performance. Her research found that children who walk, ride a bike or go by bus to school feel and perform better in school. They also become more independent and secure in their local environment, and learn sustainable behaviours that can be taken into adulthood. Jessica also found that children who are active during their school trips - talking and spending time with parents, siblings or friends - are happier.

Needless to say, adults that embrace active models for work and leisure experience a raft of health benefits, including increased social interactions. 

A study conducted by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health assessed the general and mental health of users of car, motorbike, public transport, bicycle, electric bicycle and walking in seven European cities. The effects were analysed using both single- and multiple-mode models.

The study found that cycling had the greatest health benefits: better self-perceived general health, better mental health and fewer feelings of loneliness.

The second most beneficial transport mode, walking, was associated with good self-perceived general health, greater vitality, and more contact with friends and/or family.

In the last few months of COVID-19 many of us have rediscovered the joy of a daily walk in quieter streets or have relearnt the art of bike riding. The surge in bike sales – with some retailers reporting a 200% increase – is testament to the appetite for people to shift to active transport modes. As the creators of the built environment it’s up to us to ensure this is sustainable.

Jack Earl
Urban Designer

Carinnya Feaunati
Architectural Grad

Jounila, Risto
Technical Director