New Yorkers have long bemoaned their city being overrun by bland office

towers and chain stores: Soon, it seems, every corner will either be a bank,
a Walgreens, or a Starbucks. And there is indeed evidence that all cities are
starting to look the same, which can hurt local growth and wages. But there
could be more than an economic or nostalgic price to impersonal retail and
high-rise construction: Boring architecture may take an emotional toll on
the people forced to live in and around it.

A growing body of research in cognitive science illuminates the physical

and mental toll bland cityscapes exact on residents. Generally, these
researchers argue that humans are healthier when they live among variety
a cacophony of bars, bodegas, and independent shops or work in well-
designed, unique spaces, rather than unattractive, generic ones. In their
book, Cognitive Architecture: Designing for How We Respond to the Built
Environment, Tufts urban policy professor Justin Hollander and architect
Ann Sussman review scientific data to help architects and urban planners
understand how, exactly, we respond to our built surroundings.
People, they argue, function best in intricate settings and crave variety, not
big, blank, boxy buildings.

Indeed, thats what Colin Ellard, a neuroscientist at the University of

Waterloo and director of its Urban Realities Laboratory, has found in his
own work. Five years ago, Ellard became interested in a particular building
on East Houston Street the gigantic Whole Foods plopped into a
notoriously textured part of lower Manhattan. As described in his book,
titled Places of the Heart: The Psychogeography of Everyday Life, Ellard
partnered with the Guggenheim Museums urban think tank to analyze
what happens when someone turns out of a tiny, historic [knish]
restaurant and encounters a full city block with nothing but the long,
blank faade of the Whole Foods Market.

In 2011, Ellard led small groups on carefully planned Lower East Side walks
to measure the effect of the urban environment on their bodies and minds.
Participants recorded their response to questions at each stopping point
and wore sensors that measured skin conductance, an electrodermal
response to emotional excitement. Passing the monolithic Whole Foods,
peoples state of arousal reached a nadir in Ellards project. Physiologically,
he explained, they were bored. In their descriptions of this particular place,
they used words like bland, monotonous, and passionless. In contrast, one
block east of the Whole Foods on East Houston, at the other test site a
lively sea of restaurants with lots of open doors and windows peoples
bracelets measured high levels of physical excitement, and they listed
words like lively, busy, and socializing. The holy grail in urban design is
to produce some kind of novelty or change every few seconds, Ellard said.
Otherwise, we become cognitively disengaged. The Whole Foods may
have gentrified the neighborhood with more high-quality organic groceries,
but the building itself stifled people. Its architecture blah-ness made their
minds and bodies go meh.

And studies show that feeling meh can be more than a passing nuisance.
For instance, psychologists Colleen Merrifield and James
Danckerts worksuggests that even small doses of boredom can generate
stress. People in their experiment watched three videos one boring, one
sad, and one interesting while wearing electrodes to measure their
physiological responses. Boredom, surprisingly, increased peoples heart
rate and cortisol level more than sadness. Now take their findings and
imagine the cumulative effects of living or working in the same oppressively
dull environs day after day, said Ellard.

There might even be a potential link between mind-numbing places and

attention deficit hyperactivity disorders. In one case, physicians have
linked environmental deprivation to ADHD in children. Homes without
toys, art, or other stimuli were a significant
predictor of ADHD symptoms.Meanwhile, the prevalence of U.S. adults
treated for attention deficit is rising. And while people may generally be
hardwired for variety, Dr. Richard Friedman, director of the pharmacology
clinic at Weill Cornell Medical College, makes the case that those
with ADHD are especially novelty-seeking. Friedman points to a patient
who treated his ADHD by changing his workday from one that was highly
routine a standard desk job to a start-up, which has him on the road,
constantly changing environments.

Most ADD is the result of biological factors, said Dr. Edward Hallowell, a
psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD, and co-authored numerous books
on the subject, such as Delivered From Distraction: Getting the Most Out
of Life With Attention Deficit Disorder. But, he explained, he sees a lot of
socially induced ADD, too, a form of the disorder that makes it appear as
though you inherited the genes, although you really havent. And one way
you might have the socially induced condition, according to Hallowell, is to
suffer severe boredom or live in a highly nonstimulating environment. It
makes total sense that for these people changing where they work or live to
add more visual stimulation and daily variety could be extremely helpful,
Hallowell said. At the same time, many adults may feel they
have ADHD because the world has become hypersaturated with constant
texts, emails, and input. For them, life has become too adrenalizing. They
dont have true ADHD, Hallowell said, but, rather, what I call a severe
case of modern life.

So the trick, it seems, is to design a world that excites but doesnt overly
assault our faculties with a constant barrage of information: Scientists
arent proposing that all cities look like the Vegas strip or Times Square.
We are, as animals, programmed to respond to thrill, said professor
Brendan Walker, a former aerospace engineer and author of Taxonomy of
Thrill and Thrilling Designs. In Walkers University of Nottingham thrill
laboratory, devices gauge heart rate and skin conductance to see how
people respond to adrenaline-producing experiences such as a roller-
coaster ride. And hes reduced thrill to a set of multivariable equations
that illustrate the importance of rapid variation in our lives: A thrilling
encounter moves us quickly from a state of equilibrium to a kind of
desirable disorientation, like the moment before you rush down the hill
of a roller coaster. Humans want a certain element of turmoil or
confusion, he said. Complexity is thrilling whether in an amusement park
or architecture. Environmental thrill and visual variety, Walker believes,
help peoples psyche. As many of us instinctively feel a wave of ennui at the
thought of working all day in a maze of soulless, white cubicles, blocks of
generic buildings stub our senses.

Its not only that were genetic adrenaline junkies. Psychologists

have foundthat jaw-dropping or awe-inspiring moments picture the
exhilarating view of the Grand Canyon or Paris from the Eiffel tower can
potentially improve our 21st-century well-being. One study showed that the
feeling of awe can make people more patient, less materialistic, and more
willing to help others. In an experiment, researchers showed students 60-
second clips of waterfalls, whales, or astronauts in space. After only a
minute of virtual images, those who said they were awed also felt less
pressed for time. In a second experiment, individuals recalled an awe-
inspiring event and then answered a range of survey questions; they were
also more likely to say theyd volunteer for a charity, as compared to those
who hadnt spent time thinking about a past moment of awe. And in yet
another variation, people made hypothetical choices between material and
experiential goods of equal monetary value: a watch or a Broadway show, a
jacket or a restaurant meal. Those who recently felt awe were more likely
to choose an experience over a physical possession, a choice that is linked
with greater satisfaction in the long run. In other words, a visual buzz
whether architectural or natural might have the ability to change our
frame of mind, making modern-day life more satisfying and interactive.

Its important to note, however, that architectural boredom isnt about how
pristine a street is. People often confuse successful architecture with
whether an area looks pleasant. On the contrary, when it comes to city
buildings, people often focus too narrowly on aesthetics, said Charles
Montgomery, author of Happy City: Transforming Our Through Urban
Design. But good design is really is about shaping emotional
infrastructure. Some of the happiest blocks in New York City, he argues,
are kind of ugly and messy. For instance, Ellards happier East Houston
block is a jumbled-up, social one the Whole Foods stretch, in
comparison, is newer and more manicured. Sometimes whats best for us,
Montgomery explained, just isnt that pretty.

His research also shows cacophonous blocks may make people kinder to
each other. In 2014, Montgomerys Happy City lab conducted a Seattle
experiment in which he found a strong correlation between messier blocks
and pro-social behavior. Montgomery sent researchers, posing as lost
tourists, to places he coded as either active faades with a high level of
visual interest or inactive faades (like long warehouse blocks).
Pedestrians at active sites were nearly five times more likely to offer help
than at inactive ones. Of those who helped, seven times as many at the
active site offered use of their phone; four times as many offered to lead the
lost tourist to their destination.

Fortunately, its not necessarily a dichotomy new architecture can

achieve the optimal level of cacophony and beauty. Take the 2006 Hearst
Tower in midtown Manhattan. From the outside, the faade is likely to jolt
city dwellers if anything will from their daily commutes, while
thrilling employees who enter it each morning. Designed by Pritzker
Architecture Prizewinning architect Norman Foster, Hearst Tower is a
glass-and-steel skyscraper, 40 stories of which are designed in a triangular
pattern contrasting the 1920s Art Deco base. For many who walk by, Hearst
Towers design may not be the easiest to understand; its both sleek and old.
The top looks like it traveled from the future. Inside, workers travel upon
diagonal escalators, up a three-story water sculpture, through the towers
historic atrium flooded with light. Its not the view from the Eiffel Tower
or the Grand Canyon, but its probably as close a modern lobby can come
to awe-inspiring. Few New Yorkers who pass by would find this building
boring. And theyre likely happier maybe even nicer to each other
because of it.