The Architecture of Happiness
How to build happiness, literally
This week, I will spare you the details of my latest Big Life Decisions and instead, focus on what this newsletter is all about: our search for a better life, inspired by the world’s happiest people and my personal experience.
Now, Imagine if architecture could change lives.
It’s a concept I began exploring while living in Copenhagen five years ago. Actually, it’s a concept I, unknowingly, began exploring a year before moving to Denmark, when I found myself living back in New York, having just returned from a two-year hiatus in London.
The move wasn’t a particularly happy one. Luckily, I was able to get an apartment in one of the newer developments in Brooklyn. Having chosen the building for its amenities, I soon discovered an added benefit - a large lobby with an inviting couch and friendly doormen. Two wings of the building merged at the entrance, making it a high-traffic area and a sociable one, too.
People would bump into one another and linger around a bit longer than you would in a regular building. Bump-ins turned into roof barbecues, turned into friendships. The “lobby life” kept me afloat in those difficult months and helped with the difficult transition.
It’s in that lobby where I met one of my dearest and most inspiring friends, whose Great Dane gently wrestled my Whippet puppy on the building’s carpet. After a few encounters, we “took the party upstairs,” to my new friend’s top-floor apartment, where many bottles of wine and delicious meals were consumed over the next year.
This summer, I found my life elevated by yet another architectural feature: a shared courtyard. Downsizing, we moved into a bungalow-type building attached to another bungalow-type building attached to yet another one and so on. Together, we form a semi-circle, with all the front doors facing a common yard. An unassuming area, mostly cement surrounded by old pants, it has become the central feature of my existence.
Warm weather means doors are left open throughout the day, and people share sights and sounds of one another frequently. Spilling in and out of the buildings, we bump into each other many times a day, so one never feels too lonely.
My husband and I became fast friends with a Turkish family across the yard whose son is now our daughter’s best friend. The kids ride their scooters and chase dogs across the court every evening, while owners and parents mingle. Yes, even my Whippet dog now has a “girlfriend” next door. My Turkish friend often cooks for all of us, and I teach the kids how to make pizza and cookies.
We’re not an upscale community, but we are one.
Yes, more of my evenings are now devoted to socializing than to being “productive.” All writing plans often go to hell the second I step inside our gates. But, despite many things in life being upside-down at the moment, coming home to our little courtyard makes me very happy.
From now on, whenever I search for a new place to call home, I’ll be on the lookout for this “community feel.”
These experiences made me think about the social impact architecture can and should have on our lives. When it promotes human interaction, it elevates itself above mere living quarters, inviting people to be a part of a community, without forcing them to.
When living in Copenhagen, I found a good example of this concept in the 8 House in Denmark’s capital, constructed by one of the country’s most innovative architects, Bjarke Ingels. Named after its shape, which resembles Figure 8, this residential building is described as “a three-dimensional neighborhood rather than an architectural object,” incorporating a continuous public path that stretches from street level to the penthouses and allowing people to bike all the way from the ground floor to the top.
The project was conceived as a social experiment - a construction that would bring the Southern lifestyle to the middle of the North.
Bjarke Ingels explains: “Where social life, the spontaneous encounter and neighbor interaction is traditionally restricted to the ground level, the 8 House allows it to expand all the way to the top,” which creates “a unique sense of community with small gardens and pathways that remind you of the intimacy of an Italian hill town.”
And just like that, I was introduced to a concept of architecture that promotes community-building.
This, it turned out, was a common trend in Danish modern architecture. The country that places a large value on both its design and its communities found multiple ways to combine the two.
No wonder community-minded Danes are voted the second happiest people in the world. After all, statistics show that maintaining relationships promotes physical and mental well-being, lowers depression levels and even increases longevity.
While most of us can’t manufacture the buildings we live in, or have control over our neighbors (though some will try), we can still adjust a few things to make our living spaces more community-friendly. Place chairs facing outward, open your doors or windows, wave to a neighbor, put out a doggy water bowl, and so on.
In the meantime, I’ll be obsessing over community cafes in Copenhagen, like this old church-turned-community-centre, that now serves delicious dinners for about $15 a person to come and eat together with strangers.
This sounds lovely! It reminds me of quiet afternoons in Nicaragua, where people would sit outside and catch up with the neighbors, while the kids played on the streets.