Designing urban space for psychological comfort: the Kentish Town Road project
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/17465729200500027 |
| Pages | 10-20 |
| Published date | 01 December 2005 |
| Date | 01 December 2005 |
| Author | Ruth Dillon |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
Ruth Dillon
Research student
Department of
Architecture,Royal
College of Art
Correspondence to:
Ruth Dillon
59 Nutfield Road
London SE22 9DG
ruthdillon@dsl.pipex.com
PRACTICE
10 journal of public mental health
vol 4 • issue 4
©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Ltd
This paper explores some of the
methodological, conceptual and practical
issues that are raised when attempting to
create more psychologically comfortable
urban environments. It does so through
using case studies from a live project – a lighting scheme
running the length of the Kentish Town Road, north
London – produced for Camden Council. The project
aims to design for a higher level of psychological
inclusion in the urban realm. Psychological inclusion in
this context is understoodas the possibility for a broad
spectrum of individuals to feel psychologically
comfortable when inhabiting a public urban space. The
project involves exploring how anxiety produces the
feeling of being ‘out of place’ and how features of urban
design might combat this.
Attempts to diminish experiences of anxiety in
public space are of particular relevance in a society
where anxiety is a common symptom of living in the
modern city (Carter,2002; Davis, 1998; NAi, 2004;
Thrift, 2005; Vidler, 2001; Williams, 2004). The types
of anxiety that have been studied range widely: from
clinical neurotic anxiety to realistic anxiety to fear that
is related to a known trigger. This paper contends that
the boundaries between these types of anxiety are
blurring: in today’s urban context the large number of
potential stressors for anxiety can – for a very wide range
of individuals – result in clinical symptoms that occur
during everyday occupation of the city and its spaces,
particularly in response to perceived threats of violence,
crime and terrorism.
The paper is in two sections. The first discusses the
notion of feeling out of place in the urban environment
and examines how some current trends in urban design
exacerbate this feeling. The examples used to develop
this point illustrate some of the constraints that urban
designers face when working within the political and
physical structures of London today.They also illustrate
how focusing on a single issue – such as the perception
of the threat of crime or the aesthetic quality of a space
–can fail to acknowledge the multi-layered nature of the
urban realm that must be considered if a psychologically
inclusive environment is to be created and sustained.
Literature that addresses the lived aspects of public space
is reviewed to illustrate how the ‘potentiality’ of a space
can be used to create a virtual environment that
changes people’s perceptions of a space, and thus their
levels of comfort within it.
The second section uses the Kentish Town Road
project to illustrate how these concepts have been
applied in practice, and how architectural and design
projects need to be negotiated in relation to both
financial and other constraints that affect the control
and redevelopment of public space. The management of
public space is divided between several local council
departments, each with its own agenda and
requirements for any specific site, and this creates
difficulties when attempting to construct a cohesive
proposal. With the Kentish Town Road project, one
department had the impetus to create a forward-
thinking scheme, with great potential to contribute to
public mental health, but lacked the budget and the
Designing urban space for
psychological comfort: the
Kentish Town Road project
The tendency of urban environments to produce anxiety is well documented in a range of theoretical
and historical literature, but there is little current work that considers how public spaces might be
designed to alleviate anxiety among their users.This paper presents a series of case studies taken
from a lighting design project on the Kentish Town Road in north London to show how urban design
can create a more psychologically inclusive public realm – one that offers greater psychological
comfort – by enhancing the engagement between users of urban spaces and their environment.The
argument is presented in the context of broader issues of social inclusion and other current
movements in urban design.
Key words:
anxiety
public space design
social inclusion
psychological comfort
London
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