Introduction

The Industrial Revolution was the harbinger of the modern way of life- it brought along the second agricultural revolution, the transformations of whole of earth ecosystems, massive change to the structure of the family and the community, and the vexatious ethics of consumerism. Even after controlling for various possible influences like education, wealth, geology, climate, and population density, there are marked differences in the psychological makeup of populations from the urbanised industrial regions. With relatively few exceptions, the world’s modern environmental concerns began with the Industrial Revolution. Contemporary ‘lifestyle trends’ have led to increases in lifestyle-related diseases associated with obesity, such as heart disease, diabetes, and certain forms of cancer.

Healthy Cities

Salutogenesis is a term we refer to when we are considering how the field of environmental design that works as a tool for rejuvenation- a working model that acknowledges that life experiences and the environment help shape one’s sense of coherence whereby a strong sense of coherence is seen to help a person or a society mobilise resources to cope with stressors and manage tension successfully. A healthy building paves the way for a stable physical and social platform for society. High quality spaces allow people to gather, collaborate and enjoy the best possible experiences for energy recovery and mind and body regeneration. Australians spend more than 90 per cent of their lives in buildings. The aesthetic qualities of architecture have an impact on our mood, cognitive functioning, behaviours and health. Familiarity with surroundings is recognised as a key to reducing the symptoms and loss of function associated with dementia. By implication, if people can remain living in their own homes, and in their own neighbourhoods, then the disorientation, confusion and anxiety of moving into new environments can be eliminated. Prior knowledge and expectations influence how we perceive the world, and how this is realised by the brain- so visual perception is strongly influenced by our prior knowledge and expectations. We can use these insight to improve our treatment of the human condition for disorders such as psychosis, autism and dementia, which are characterised by aberrations in perception. Humans recognise ‘their own’ thoughts and behaviours as they reflect on their own mistakes. Self-awareness helps to control behaviour and supports humans to seek help on difficult tasks. Throughout their lives people form and change their beliefs about their skills and abilities. Confidence in one’s own decisions influences the behaviour and interactions with others and self-awareness effects positive change to neurological disorders supporting restoration and improvements in mental health. We capture and utilise past experiences as autobiographical memories. These serve to sustain our sense of self and enable independent living and prolonging survival. In today’s world we can document the impact of nature and beauty as restorative experiences on brain areas. Whenever one has an aesthetic experience involving any stimulus that gives a sense of pleasantness, the stress hormone cortisol ‘drops’ as does anxiety. Aesthetics act on a specialized brain centre located in orbito-frontal cortex called the centre of beauty where it integrates sensations of beauty, be it visual, olfactory, gustatory and even auditory. This experience releases molecules such as dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins into circulation, each of which can affect anxiety, stress, depression. Happiness depends not on how well you are doing, but whether you are doing better than expected. Happiness relates to neural activity in dopamine. Happiness correlates to multiple dimensions relevant to mood including effort, intrinsic reward, future prospects, environmental volatility, confidence, and altruistic behaviour. All humans seek to learn and grow connections from their environments. This is true for all organisms which is known in anthropological terminology as Niche Construction. Architects consolidate and synchronise divergent information’s as connections into new built constructs that form the basis of our cities. We believe the more connections the building makes the better the building experience will be. Higher levels of connectivity increases the integrity, resonance and coherence of our daily experiences and the best buildings therefore have an abundance of integrity and connectivity. We improve the utility of architecture through what is known as Active Inference to elicit positive feedback in architecture and urban planning solutions. Active inference is a way of understanding human behaviour that characterizes perception, planning, and action in terms of probabilistic inference providing an integrated perspective on brain, cognition, and behaviour that is increasingly used across multiple disciplines including neuroscience, psychology, philosophy and architecture. Active inference is an approach to understanding behaviour and the brain, framed in terms of a single imperative to minimize free energy to explain such cognitive phenomena as perception, attention, memory, and planning. We organise the design process into a probabilistic design process which enables novel design invention based on collective human memory of the surrounding environment to form coherent environmental conditions refined for human settlement and niche creation. These are culturally enriching environments and enduring commercially resilient solutions.

Learning Cities

The authoritarian education systems of the past neglected our needs and were trained on the sole task of accumulating knowledge. Some of the post-modern educational philosophies as, Montessori, Waldorf and Reggio Emilia have however advocated for our understandings for a more human-centred education highlighting that humans (children) can only learn and thrive when their needs are met, and giving then the capacity to absorb knowledge and new concepts efficiently. As architects we must organise and prepare for the production of safe environments for our society in order to be free to explore and learn without risk. Architecture itself must therefore address human biological needs for natural day light, clean air, comfort, connection to others and with nature. If we comprehend the specific needs of people inhabiting the spaces we create and their daily behaviours, their duties and their journeys, then we can shape an architecture that pleases them and makes them feel grounded, calm and focused.

Comprehensibility

The development of our youngest children needs to be supported through connectivity to emotions, creativity, and feelings linked through nature that can contribute greatly to a child’s intrinsic search for sensitivity. Children learn through cognitive reasoning and imagination and are driven to try and understand the world around them, and to find out how things work, and with better organised external environments comes the better internal organization of the child’s mind and the child’s processes of reasoning.

Multisensoriality

We delineate the physical organization of architecture into learning dwelling spaces that are designed to suit a human scale and ergonomic functionality and the surrounding environment and its textures, layering, sense of movement, atmosphere and its legibility. The environment should be aesthetically pleasing and contain materials that our minds can engage in. In the case of the child, learning spaces must be designed so that they can move and interact through space without the intervention of an adult.

Ecoliteracy

Our children are powerful and capable beings, they are small adults. A child’s innate curiosity is the fuel that guides learning because it is through it that the child experiences, absorbs, and builds their understanding of the world. Correspondingly, the child’s development must occur in a multitude of different languages: expressive, communicative, cognitive, ethical, logical, imaginative, and rational. Eco literacy is essential knowledge for the 21st century. One’s own environmental setting determined by an interacting sociobiological ecosystem need to be utilised to foster ecological intelligence. The design of the environment and the processes that lead to its creation can assist students in experiencing and understanding how they are connected to the natural world. The learning environment in our cities and in our scholastic infrastructure can become a living laboratory for how nature works, and the building and its surrounding gardens can form an intimate setting and micro-ecosystem to explore themes like food, where it comes from, how its grown and how the environment effects it, it also enables deep learning of nutrition and what is good for our bodies and minds. Healthy eating equals a healthy mind and body, the basis of the constitution you need for learning and growing. Community can be engaged in these activities through voluntary programs and shared spaces. Water is essential for life and needs to be treated as a precious commodity within the construction of any building. Trapping water runoff from the landscape as well as all roof areas is key to a fully sustainable solution. Grey water can be used for maintaining gardens as well as recycling for use inside the building. Black water treatment can also be utilised to make sure each and every water droplet is put to good use in our endeavours to create an exemplary cradle to cradle solution. All materials used in the construction of a new building can harness recycling. Repurposing old materials and new and sustainable grown natural materials will allow us to make what can be seen as naturally grown buildings.

Connectivity

From and evolutionary perspective human beings are programmed to thrive in nature and grown and nurtured in community, these connections have sustained human survival and made us into who we are today. Through new scientific analysis it is now abundantly clear that we require connection to nature and community to sustain our overall physical and emotional wellbeing. All of our communities need to assess what they can do to improve this type of connectivity. Intelligent research-based design driven by continuing community consultation forms the best platform for new environmental creation processes.

Natural Systems

In order to harmonise any building into its setting, a study of the local natural biodiversity and sociocultural diversity is necessary. A study of natural and how these elements interact as ecosystems can form the basis of human habitat creation.

The Senses

Humans have five senses which our bodies use to learn and experience the world. Our brains grow and change throughout our lifetime. Neurogenesis is the way in which our bodies produce new neurons in the brain. We now know that the neurogenesis process continually adapts and responds to its environment. In fact, the environment can determine if new neurons are produced or if existing ones die. Thanks to recent scientific studies, we now have compelling evidence, and a new comprehension of how good environments work for our mind and body. If we undertake to embrace these understandings we afford ourselves the extraordinary opportunity to directly improve people’s lives.

Family Friendly Space

Through the understanding of human physical and psychological needs, we can plan space and create experiences that are effortless, natural, and comprehensible. We can articulate how intimate space can work in a more optimised format for the individual, for family and for the community. We can use the study, in detail of the social relationships and create spaces which will actively support a restorative philosophy. We see a building as a social hub and we elevate the importance of its sociological systems via anthropological analysis as of central importance to our task as architects and designers.

Distributed Intelligence

Our world is increasingly being led and developed through the auspices of highspeed 5G internet capability and the new power of AI processing of information. The next five to ten years will see the sophisticated integration of embedded interactive technologies joining up to the physical, virtual and invisible worlds into a world of distributed intelligence. The effects of this transformation will be significant. Analysing this digital immersion and understanding its effects on human behaviour, learning and health will be of central importance to the future of cities. The role of nature and its restorative properties will be of critical importance as we transition into these smart environments.

Universal Design

The globalised growth of cities has grown mainly out the delivery on socioeconomic demands rather than the delivery of higher functioning places that promote growth of human wellbeing. The change ahead allows us to conceptualise a kinder, more agile and responsive approach where the physical environment is ready to nurture and support all ages. Designing for the mobility impaired and providing for seamlessly embedded sophisticated solutions to access and movement in and around cities is central to humanising our cities.

Industry 4.0

The Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0, conceptualises rapid change to technology, industries, and societal patterns and processes in the 21st century due to increasing interconnectivity and smart automation. A part of this phase of industrial change is the joining of technologies like artificial intelligence, gene editing, to advanced robotics that blur the lines between the physical, digital, and biological worlds. Throughout this, fundamental shifts are taking place in how the global production and supply network operates through ongoing automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices, using modern smart technology, large-scale machine-to-machine communication, and the internet of things. This integration results in increasing automation, improving communication and self-monitoring, and the use of smart machines that can analyse and diagnose issues without the need for human intervention. It also represents a social, political, and economic shift from the digital age of the late 1990s and early 2000s to an era of embedded connectivity distinguished by the omni-use and commonness of technological use throughout society (e.g. a metaverse) that changes the ways humans experience and know the world around them. It posits that we have created and are entering an augmented social reality compared to just the natural senses and industrial ability of humans alone.

Web 3.0

Web 3.0 is propelled by four new layers of technological innovation:

Edge Computing – While web 2.0 changed currently commoditized personal computer technology in data centres, web 3.0 pushes the data centre out to the edge (i.e. edge computing) and into our hands. Decentralized Data Network – Users will own their data on web 3.0 since data is decentralized. Different data generators can sell or share their data without losing ownership or relying on intermediaries using decentralized data networks. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning – Artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms have advanced to the level that they can now make useful and occasionally life-saving predictions and acts. Blockchain – Blockchain is a decentralized technology that uses smart contracts to execute transactions. These smart contracts define the semantics of a web 3.0 application. As a result, everyone who wants to develop a blockchain application must use the shared state machine.