Joy is a word we’ve been told to remove from place propositions and copy a number of times. So it was intriguing to see a panel titled: ‘The Joy Factor: Making cities feel good again’ at UKREiiF. It was hosted by Humanise – the campaign that aims to fight for the buildings and cities we need: ones which are radically more interesting, joyful and human.

The premise of the hour was to make a case for joy to become more fundamental in urban planning and design. Let’s take a whistlestop tour through the argument for infusing this under-loved word into the places that may just need it most.

What do we mean by joy?

Through the course of discussion joy was characterised as: interesting, varied and characterful buildings.

We particularly liked Sharon Watson MBE DL’s, Chief Executive and Principal of the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, accidental definition when she was describing a specific case: a gem within a community that says “there’s magic inside this building.”

Much discussion centred around heritage, but the thought of a building looking better after 100 years rather than worse felt like a great benchmark.

Why should we care about joy?

It was acknowledged that a lot of effort goes into green spaces and the spaces between buildings that are so fundamental to establishing a sense of place for those who might be the immediate audience, and beyond. However, Humanise have termed the proliferation of bland, boring buildings a ‘Blandemic’ due to their negative impact on brains, bodies and behaviours.

To help substantiate that, Professor Rosie McEachen referred to the ‘Born in Bradford’ study; a study of 60,000 people that brought to light the places we live are key drivers of health. It will come as no surprise that areas with high deprivation are also areas vulnerable to negative health impacts, but what will perhaps shock you is the 20 year disparity in healthy life expectancy between families in the least and most deprived areas. This is the type of issue that can’t be solved by a quirky roof garden or more joyful paint choices. But Rosie suggests that looking to healthy high streets and putting equity as a top priority alongside wellbeing as a starting point.

We were left wishing there was more time spent discussing the link between bland buildings and health because whilst the study statistics are alarming, they are tied to more than simply the built environment. So we followed up with Laurence Dudeney of Heatherwick Studio – the architecture practice that openly declares it wants to ‘see a world where the buildings and places around us are radically more joyful, engaging and human’. He helped articulate something we had felt deep down during some recent city hopping – ‘A place can be efficient but joyless; safe but forgettable; productive but stressful. Successful cities do more. They make people feel that they belong somewhere worth caring about. Buildings impact on our stress levels, sense of identity, belonging and pride – this is becoming ever more important when you look at the fracturing of society and the issues we’re facing.’

Humanise’s theory is that if we don’t like buildings, they’re more likely to get demolished: 50,000 buildings are demolished each year in the UK. But if we build with humans at the heart, we might just find the fight to keep them which helps joyful cities be self-sustaining.

Where can we find joy?

It was poetically summarised that buildings connect people to a place by being a constant. We can probably each point to buildings in our communities or favourite places that have been through a world war, a global pandemic, perhaps fire and vandalism, and yet they’ve endured. That kind of character and craft is why we love to convert old buildings rather than only build new ones.

A few examples that came up in the discussion:

● Richard Parker, Mayor of the West Midlands – Powerhouse, the future home of Birmingham FC – he pointed out that whilst heritage and history were built into the brief, the real challenge was creating a place that sustained an energy and atmosphere beyond the immense one it holds for 90 minutes per week. His goal? To make it an active place for the community for the rest of the week.

● Kate Josephs CB, Chief Executive of Sheffield City Council is an advocate for heroing the combination of industrial heritage, moors, greenery and more that have shaped Sheffield, where new development often ends up smoothing it away. She pointed to The Crucible and its role in the arts and culture of the city and the emphasis it places on internal as well as external architecture.

● Professor Rosie McEachen highlighted Salts Mill in Saltaire, West Yorkshire, a reimagined mill that now houses galleries, eateries and shops. A joyful building to Rosie not least because its heritage demonstrated the sweet spot between what’s needed for economic growth (the mill that employed 4,500 people) and the model village that was built alongside it, ensuring the workers could live in a healthy environment.

What threatens joy?

Budgets. Let’s tackle the most obvious one first. There is, as Tim Heatley, Co-Founder of social impact developer Capital&Centric, reminded us, a tension between the bottom line and the long term benefit of healthier happier communities. Beyond the industry finding it in their hearts to prioritise joy,  perhaps long-term stewardship, the responsibility to build precisely those happier communities, is one step towards moving joy up the agenda. Tim defined his version of joy as working out “how we create the heritage buildings of the future” and he thinks it doesn’t need to be prohibitively expensive to create something “weird and wonderful to make future people care, and not want to pull it down.”

Laurence Dudeney had a simple answer – apathy. The main threat to joy is when society or the sector thinks it doesn’t matter. So, the job of the brief perhaps is to first convince your audience that it does matter, that it is inherently important to the successful adoption of a place, of people feeling like they belong. If we forever approach it functionally – ‘people need houses/spaces to do X and so we provide Y’ we’re missing the long term view that makes someone feel they could never leave a place because it’s part of their identity.

What are our first steps to joyful cities?

Architect Laurence Dudeney says joy needs two things to grow: clarity of vision and confident leadership. He points to a US example where they’re working closely with the Mayor of Louisville, Kentucky who’s vision is to bring more people back downtown, a common problem in post Covid US cities. The mayor is clear that the public space has to get better to attract people back after their routines and rituals have moved on. Laurence sees their job as tying together the budgets and vision – and he knows it takes a tight knit team to make that happen. The good news is the team are publishing a guide specifically for Mayors on how they too can champion more joyful development.

Tim Heatley spoke out on the importance of public consultation – he sees the informal chats that can precede them as a place where you can kick off enjoyment. They’re used to having several hundred people turn up for pizzas, beers and to have their say. They’re not always easy, but they can create advocates if you’re able to respond and get the next version right. As he so eloquently put it – you probably won’t get the same result with “some foam boards in a library at 3pm on a Thursday afternoon when no one can turn up.”

We respected the points at which the panellists admitted we don’t have all the answers yet, and that there is undoubtedly experimentation to be done in New Towns and large-scale regenerations. However, admitting where joy has been derailed or not yet baked into a brief is a start.