We are seeing an exponential rate of change in our lives – how we live, where and how we work, what we want to do to relax, what we want to eat…the list goes on.

Loneliness always increases as societies modernise. Loneliness is an ailment of modernity.

The Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness says there is a “gap in national leadership on loneliness” and claims loneliness is as harmful to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

The Cox report mentions social institutions that are becoming a less and less common aspect of people’s daily lives – church, local pub, workplace, social club.

All of this combines to present some great challenges in the built environment, especially when developing homes and communities.

Loneliness is deeply emotional state – we are emotional beings. But this has been largely forgotten by designers and developers as demand for housing has increased rapidly over recent decades.

We need our developments to meet the emotional needs of residents.

At a time when all around us life is ever changing; technology is evolving and new trends are constantly emerging, conversely our raw human, emotional needs are never changing. This is what our design expertise needs to focus on.
This emotionally driven new approach to design has the potential to tackle head on one of the great scandals of our modern society.

Providing housing that responds to the evolving human condition – that promotes interaction and builds community could give people at every stage of life the like-minded, multi-generational community they need to feel happy and in turn, healthy.

People want to feel joy, people want social interaction, people want to get together to eat and catch-up on their days. The delivery method may change but people still feel joy when they receive a parcel.

Let’s harness the joy and dedicate significant creative power to these elements within a development.