Heatherwick launches £1.5m research to fight UK's 'blandemic'

Thomas Heatherwick's campaign Humanise has launched a £1.5 million research project to tackle what it calls the UK's "'blandemic' of dull, soulless development" and to improve how the country designs and builds its urban environments.

Titled Delivering Humanised Places, the partnership brings together the University of Glasgow, funding agency UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Humanise, the campaign Heatherwick established in 2023.

The research will examine how UK buildings can promote health, pride and belonging, and the socio-economic benefits of doing so. Particular focus will fall on the external design of buildings and streets — and its impact on people's wellbeing, which Heatherwick argued receives too little consideration.

What does Heatherwick say about the problem?

"Buildings in our towns and cities are experienced by millions of us every year as we pass by, and profoundly affect how we feel, yet we've spent decades designing buildings with a narrow definition of function, led by efficiency and cost, and too much focus on the needs of the people who use them inside," Heatherwick said.

"The experience for passersby has been street after street of characterlessness," he continued.

"In this time when society is more fragmented than ever, characterised by an epidemic of loneliness, too little thought has been given to how the design of the outsides of buildings could benefit society more broadly."

What does the research involve?

According to Humanise's own research, 76 per cent of people in the UK believe the appearance of buildings affects mental health. The project aims to:

• strengthen the evidence base on how buildings affect people's wellbeing;
• centre local voices and give communities more say in decisions about the places they live;
• create spaces that are engaging and joyful;
• influence policy by offering resources to mayors and developers implementing "humanised" design in regeneration and development projects.

"Human-centred design can help us create places with character and joy, that support our wellbeing and sense of belonging, and that people value for generations to come," said Heatherwick. "Places people love also last longer."

"Our ambition is to turbocharge the creation of radically more human, engaging and joyful places," he continued. "The opportunity to make meaningful change is massive, but it will only be able to begin with the deep understanding that comes from measuring."

Why now?

The research launches as the UK government works towards its plan to build new towns in England — a moment Heatherwick frames as pivotal.

"Britain is preparing to build homes and communities on a scale we haven't seen for generations," he said. "This is a rare opportunity to ensure that the human experience is at the heart of what we build."

Humanise grew out of Heatherwick's 2023 campaign of the same name, itself based on his book Humanise, a Maker's Guide to Building Our World, which calls for "an end to boring buildings".

The campaign has its critics. Writer Owen Hopkins dismissed it as "an incredibly reductive way of assessing the built environment", arguing it fails to identify the causes of poorly designed architecture or how to tackle them.

With £1.5 million and academic partners now in place, Humanise will need to produce measurable evidence to answer them.