York's buildings can affect our mood and wellbeing

WE shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us. These were the words of Prime Minister Winston Churchill during a debate on the rebuilding of the House of Commons in 1943.

Certainly a good soundbite, as would be expected from Winston Churchill, but it is one that also has been reinforced by neuroscientific research over the past 80 years.

There are specialist cells in our brains that respond to the shape and layout of our surroundings. The impact of the buildings we see everyday can greatly affect how we feel – they can impact our mood and wellbeing.

We might not consciously realise it but each of the buildings that makes up the streets and places we inhabit impacts on how we feel about York as a city and in some way effects how we feel about ourselves.

We can have a wide variety of connections with buildings – we can love them, hate them or we can simply pass them by and struggle to remember them when they are gone.

York, over the last 2,000 years, has seen constant change by the people who have lived, worked and sometimes been hostile to the city. Some of the buildings we have inherited were begun centuries ago and are still being adapted to meet new needs today. Others are much more recent.

New buildings will come along to replace existing structures much as they have done across the centuries. Others will take existing buildings and adapt them – something much preferable when trying to address our ever-growing issues affecting our climate.

York Museum Gardens. Image: York Museum Gardens

It is easy to perhaps think of buildings and the spaces between them as impersonal creations made from hard materials, but they were all designed, built, used, altered and in some cases demolished by people.

Last week the University of York’s new School of Architecture launched its Centre for Architecture, Urbanism and Global Heritage. The centre will focus on investigating the human aspects of architecture, spaces, urban heritage and the ever-changing nature of cities. Having a city like York on the centre’s doorstep is a fantastic opportunity for everyone to work together to really get under the skin of the buildings, streets, green spaces and squares that make up our city and influence us.

York is a city of many parts but with some common denominators. In the city centre we find narrow winding streets - where large spaces like Parliament Street and Museum Gardens are unusual. There are tightly packed low buildings - where singular tall buildings stand out, though increased demand for housing, hotels and offices puts pressure on how high a building can be.

The further from the city centre we move the more space we encounter though buildings generally remain low with areas of often very tightly packed terraces.

Some buildings are real dividers. At the Centre for Architecture, Urbanism and Global Heritage launch Prof Michael White talked about the impact that, as a child, family holidays in York had on him. For all of the city’s treasures some of his favourite personal recollections were eating in the restaurant of the then Viking Hotel (now the Radisson Hotel). For many in the audience visits to Fibbers in Stonebow House were equally positive memories. Yet these are two 20th century buildings that many people would not view as being positive elements of York’s city centre. They even make some people very angry – how could such buildings have been allowed in York! Yet many would defend York’s modern buildings and cry out for more in a city dominated by the buildings we have inherited from previous generations.

The changing nature of the city is constant and we all perhaps need to take time in our busy lives to pause and consider our surroundings and the impact they have on us. How would we feel if the character of an area changed with more green space, wider streets, higher buildings? Would it matter to us?

The University of York’s new School of Architecture with its focus on people, sustainability and building a future where everyone can thrive, working with city partners like the Civic Trust and the people of York is an exciting moment for us. We should all be asking how we can get involved in shaping the buildings that will go on to shape us even if it is just for our own sakes.

Andrew Morrison is the chief executive of York Civic Trust