Our Thinking: Positive design interventions for our public health
It is widely recognised that urban open spaces are beneficial to our communities and cities. Research also indicates that they can either positively or negatively impact our physical and mental health. Recently, the ID-LAB team had the opportunity to work on one such project in Melbourne – the Wheatsheaf Community Hub in Glenroy.
As Colin Ellard, professor of neuroscience at the University of Waterloo, says, the design, surface, and skin of buildings have the power to influence our psychological states. As Ellard’s research indicates, “low complexity” surfaces, such as grey, plain walls, are potentially damaging to our health long-term: “Even with a very short exposure to one of those monotonous low complexity facades [our tests can measure] the physiological signature of boredom. Boredom is – whether you think of it as an emotion or not – a state which is physiologically harmful.”
For Ellard, there is a solution to elevate our urban spaces and raise the quality of our collective mental and physical health: incorporate more public art into our communal spaces. Specifically, public art which features “intermediate levels of complexity,” such as patterns, symmetry, and curvature to entice the human eye. The ID-LAB team applied this thinking to the community mural at the centre of the Glenroy Community Hub, a new public space striving to achieve the highest level of design that is community-focused, sustainable and beautiful.
Located at the former Glenroy Primary School site at the city’s northern fringe, the Hub is aiming to be both Green Star and Passive house rated. Partially opened in March 2022, the long-awaited Hub is slated to become an inspiring new home for the Glenroy Library and the Glenroy Memorial Kindergarten. Designed by DesignInc Architects, the Hub will provide a welcoming community space with a focus on maternal child health, childcare services, community health and neighbourhood engagement. Inspired by the local environment, the $27.5 million project features a predominantly timber structure that prioritises biophilic design principles to seamlessly incorporate nature, helping to foster more meaningful connections between people and their shared spaces.
By integrating graphical elements that represent and celebrate the places, people and values that make up Glenroy, our aim with the mural design was to create a communal landmark locals could connect with and be proud of. The ID-LAB design team drew inspiration for this piece from the plants, shrubs and flowers that make up the gardens which are lovingly cared for by the local community. We also integrated wildlife into these drawings, such as the local wattlebirds and fairy wrens.
As the designers on this project, we wanted the final artwork to still have a hand-made quality to it. To emulate this, we hand drew all the illustrations directly from the local environment, then digitised them for the final mural artwork. The result is a vibrant and visually compelling piece of public art that works to enliven the space and act as a recognisable meeting place and landmark for years to come.
As our population continues to rise, there is a corresponding need for more of these types of visual interventions in public spaces that help us to share and grow. Now more than ever, we as designers need to continue to find ways to work together to bring out the best of our public spaces, not just to beautify them, but to help us slow down, pause and reconnect with ourselves and one another.