Mind Field

A guide to architectural influence

By Nathan J. Comp

Build it and they will change.

Or will they?

There’s more to the practice of architecture than simple functionality. Architects throughout history have used their craft to portray everything from political power to industrial might and personal wealth.

People see buildings and immediately draw a conclusion about those who live or work there. But can a person’s reaction to a building go deeper than simply informing an opinion? Do people act different in the presence of certain structures?

Does architecture have the power to change how people behave?

John Norquist believes it does. The president and CEO of the Congress for New Urbanism in Chicago and former Milwaukee mayor notes that strolling down a sidewalk in, say, downtown Cedarburg is a different experience than a person gets in Brookfield, where the main street is flanked by strip malls and few sidewalks.

“You’d feel good being in Cedarburg,” he said.

It might sound simple, but it might also be at the heart of architecture’s impact.

“It’s been demonstrated that people respond to their environment,” said Jim Draeger, an architectural historian for the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison. “Space itself doesn’t change the way people behave, but it can influence their decisions.”

A student in a beautiful school with excellent lighting, top-notch food and fresh flowers throughout will develop a certain mindset based on the surroundings, he said. If, instead, that same student walked to a dim, bland school every day through a blighted neighborhood with boarded-up buildings and threatening graffiti, the mindset would obviously be different.

“Subliminally, the environment around you shapes your attitude about your place in the world and how you’re valued,” Draeger said. “The built environment, in general, validates us or devalues us depending on what the environment is.

“That definitely translates to your behavior because it’s influenced by the way you see the world around you.”

Like Draeger, Norquist sees architecture triggering instincts. People don’t necessarily stop to consider how to react in a particular environment; but that doesn’t mean they’re not reacting.

“When people walk by a building with no windows, there is no lingering,” Norquist said. “But if they walk by a building with storefront windows, they stop and look.”

Instincts are one thing; social interactions are another. And that’s where some people see architecture losing its power.

“It’s an area that’s received a lot of attention, especially with the idea of New Urbanism and reducing the impact of sprawl,” said Gary Green, a professor of rural sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “I’m quite skeptical of the benefits of architecture redesigning social life. I don’t think there’s a lot of research supporting it.

“The idea that somehow you can create more social bonding is way beyond what architecture can do.”

Melissa Destree believes in the redemptive powers of architecture. She said the craft, by virtue of its ability to evoke emotion, must influence how people behave.

“Architecture can be uplifting, inspiring; it can be confining,” she said. “When you walk through neighborhoods that are 200 years old, all those styles stimulate imagination.”

Destree is putting those ideas to the test. Her Madison architectural firm, Destree Design Architects, is one of 25 companies helping redesign Madison’s troubled Allied Drive neighborhood. The neighborhood recently saw a series of improvements, most of them with an eye toward discouraging intimidating and destructive behavior.

Madison developer Gorman & Co. Inc. overhauled a Super Saver site near the neighborhood, and it did so with security in mind. Common corridors were replaced with individual entrances to keep people from congregating, which many found intimidating.

Greater attention was given to landscaping, the idea being that nice lawns discourage people from walking across them. Fresh paint is kept on doors and railings.

“There’s a corollary to dressing well: You feel better when you’re in a suit and tie,” said Chris Laurent, Gorman’s senior development manager. “We try to set the stage with high levels of expectations. As we have focused on paying attention to design and detail, we’ve seen an ongoing sustainability of these sites.”

In other words, a well-designed building can cultivate a sense of safety.

A well-designed building also can impact behavior in more subtle ways. Kevin O’Toole, executive vice-president of Brookfield-based Hunzinger Construction Co., looks to the Park Lafayette condo project as an example.

“A person driving by it has a good feeling,” he said. “Conversely, something stark probably wouldn’t be well liked and be prone to tags and damage to the building.”

Park Lafayette’s two, 20-story towers could’ve been looming objects in the historic east side Milwaukee neighborhood. But the street-level town homes offer a nice transition to the larger structures. Park Lafayette not only meshes with the context of its surroundings, but it arguably has a pleasant effect on the community’s psyche, O’Toole said.

And the concept of design impacting community ties directly to New Urbanism, a community design theory that gained popularity in the 1990s. It’s a throwback to traditional city planning, and its narrow streets and upper-level apartments above retail space help foster civic vitality, according to proponents such as Norquist.

But Green isn’t necessarily buying what the New Urbanism supporters are selling.

“The presumption is [that people] are lacking in social support, and that might be a little biased,” he said.

In 1969, sociologist William Whyte began studying pedestrian behavior in Manhattan. The result was “City: Rediscovering the Center,” a book that describes how people interact with their environment.

The book gained popularity with people — like Norquist — on one side of the equation. But Green maintains that other, bigger forces are at work.

“Certainly architecture has an individual effect; people do respond to having a sense of place,” he said. “It’s when we extend this idea beyond the individual to solving social problems that I have an issue with it.”