When Zaha Hadid’s library and archive for the Middle East Centre at St. Antony’s College in Oxford opened, many were outraged. The campus is notable for its bilateral symmetry and decorative spires of Victorian architecture—so there was no shortage of faculty and students who found the new building distasteful.
“The Guardian” reported that the building had been labeled a “beached whale,” a “giant ear trumpet,” and a “crashed airplane,” among other (less printable) things. But how will the professors and students who will actually use the building come to feel?

The Science of Psychogeography:
How Environment Influences Our Minds
Psychogeography—the science of how our environment affects us—is fast becoming an important factor in urban development. Thanks to advances in neurobiology, the connection between our brains and our buildings is becoming clearer—and undeniable.
Perspectives on Urban Design and Mental Health
We now have proof of what ancient city planners and classical architects suspected throughout history. As Charles Montgomery puts it in his book “Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design,” “The systems in which we live undeniably influence our emotional lives.”
Urbanization and Its Mental Health Challenges
This relationship between our mental health and our environment, specifically our built environment, is especially important in cities. The 2024 revision of the United Nation’s “World Urbanization Prospects” indicates that a majority of the world’s population (about 55%) now resides in urban centers.
Boring Architecture’s Impact on Wellbeing
But, as Architect Itai Palti and neuroscientist Moshe Bar point out, city life may be far from ideal. Palti and Bar, who collaborated on “A Manifesto for Conscious Cities,” cite research proving that “growing up in an urban environment…hampers our ability to handle stress, and might make us more susceptible to a range of psychological disorders.” Accordingly, they argue, creating happy cities should be a priority.

And one thing we know we don’t want is boring. The mid-twentieth century flight to the suburbs, with their “monotonous tracts of identical cookie-cutter houses,” demonstrated how boredom could be linked with stress.
Colin Ellard, who’s a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo and the Director of its Urban Realities Laboratory, provides well-researched examples of the negative effects of boring architecture in his book “Places of the Heart: The Psychogeography of Everyday Life.”
For example, suburban teens suffer from social and emotional distress and seniors “who live among long stretches of dead frontage” age faster. Ellard even cites research showing that boredom may correlate with higher mortality rates.
In her recent article, “The Psychological Cost of Boring Buildings,” Jacoba Urist—who also argues that there may be a connection between un-stimulating architecture and ADHD—ultimately asks for streetscapes to be imbued with interest: Says Urist, “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.”
Neuroscience in City Planning:
From Boredom to Awe
This point is backed up by research into the nature of awe. Awe, it turns out, encourages pro-social behavior, reduces stress, and affects our interpretation of time.
Not all buildings can generate awe. In fact, they may all too often generate its opposite. Neuroscientist Ellard explains in “Cities and Their Psychology: How Neuroscience Affects Urban Planning” that systematic spaces promote “low levels of arousal and attention,” while chaotic—even ugly—spaces produce “arousal and effortful attention.” Ellard’s contention is that neuroscience is key to urban design. We can now use this knowledge to help us create cities that increase happiness, reduce stress, and foster sociability.
Memory and Urban Design
Staying away from boring designs may also improve memory. In “Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything,” Joshua Foer points out an interesting fact about memory: “Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it.”
We remember things that fall outside our everyday lives, such as when we caught the flu on vacation in Turkey or when we watched a foreign film after knee surgery. This aspect of memory could translate into urban design—focal points in the built landscape may help to jog our memories.
Let’s return to Zaha Hadid’s Oxford library, a building that interrupts an otherwise uniform space with unexpected curves and shiny metal. How people interpret this building may be less important than the fact that they notice it.
According to the author of “Happy City,” Charles Montgomery, “When it comes to city buildings, people often focus too narrowly on aesthetics.” Like many structures at the center of aesthetic debates (Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House, Sagrada Familia, the “Walkie Talkie” in London), Hadid’s sinuous library gets people talking.
The reason they’re talking is that the building cannot be ignored: the juxtaposition with its surrounding structures makes people re-see all the buildings in a new way.
For the sake of our mental health and our memory, this sense of difference may be exactly what we need in urban architecture.
Urban design featuring creative office spaces can be a potent tool for inspiring occupants and fomenting positive energy. These spaces, with their innovative designs and collaborative atmospheres, can invigorate the culture of the workspace while also helping to enliven the architectural aesthetic. The more we integrate these creative hubs into the urban fabric, the more we’ll enhance the professional landscape and foster a holistic sense of wellbeing and productivity among city dwellers.