Architectural practices are championing buildings that are intriguing, whimsical, and that foster connection. Chief proponent of this concept is Thomas Heatherwick’s Humanise Campaign, which the architect says is about “making [cities] more joyful and engaging through the design of buildings.” “We need to be asking how do buildings make us feel? What is their impact on our emotions? Do they create the conditions where people feel safe, happy and included?” the campaign states. With the belief that “boring buildings deprive us of crucial sensory information,” Heatherwick’s campaign argues that buildings should “captivate” from three vantage points – from a distance of 40 meters, 20 meters, or 2 meters, otherwise expressed as “from city, to street, to door.”

As part of Humanise’s mission to put these ideas into practice, the campaign has partnered with the UK’s Loughborough University to design content for a new MA program in Architecture & Design, which will launch in fall 2025. As part of the collaboration, there will also be a series of lectures and workshops exploring “the idea of emotion as a function of design,” the university said.

WEB Universidad Ean 3 Heatherwick Studio CREDIT NOD
WEB Universidad Ean 2 Heatherwick Studio CREDIT NOD

Universidad Ean in Colombia renderings by Heatherwick Studio, construction expected to begin in 2025. Courtesy of Nod

Abigail Scott Paul, global head of the Humanise Campaign, tells VML Intelligence that the campaign collaborated with the university to “develop an approach that could boost understanding of human needs when it comes to building design and the role of visual complexity, as well as train up a new generation of architects who can bring Humanise principles to life.”

Scott Paul adds that the Humanise Campaign “is about sensitizing people, including those responsible for designing and commissioning buildings, to the negative impacts of boring buildings on our health and wellbeing,” adding that “studies are beginning to show that being surrounded by boring buildings that lack visual complexity increases cortisol levels, causing higher levels of stress.”

Indeed, alongside pointing to research by Thinks Insight that shows 76% of people in the UK think buildings have an impact on their mental health, Scott Paul cites a 2012 study by neuroscientist Colin Ellard from the Urban Realities Lab at Canada’s University of Waterloo, that demonstrated that “dull, flat building facades increase stress.” Scott Paul added that the Humanise Campaign is funding new research to build on this study, with its findings set to be available in the fall.

Among Heatherwick Studio’s buildings that espouse this vision of a more “human” architecture is its project for a design school and makers’ space that will be part of Universidad Ean in Bogotá, Colombia. Imagined as a riot of colorful columns, dotted with balconies spilling an abundance of lush plants, the design spotlights details inspired by Werregue basketry, practiced by Colombia’s indigenous Wounaan community. Echoing the principles of the Humanise Campaign, Heatherwick Studio partner Eliot Postma said the aim of the design is that “students [will] feel proud of their campus before they even enter the building, arriving through a public square that offers passers-by a welcoming communal oasis amidst the hard urban surroundings." Works are due to begin on the project in 2025.

WEB 1 EXPO25 SWISSPAVILION AERIAL
WEB KSA Pavilion4
WEB KSA Pavilion Foster Partners1

Image 1: Swiss Pavilion, Expo 2025 Osaka

Image 2 and 3: KSA Pavilion, Expo 2025 Osaka. Courtesy of Foster + Partners

Also exemplifying this joyful, emotion-inspiring mood are several of the pavilions created by participating countries set to be exhibited at Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan. Saudi Arabia’s KSA pavilion, inspired by the country’s “traditional…urban structures” is intended to “[echo] the exploration of towns and cities throughout the kingdom,” and to capture the country’s “deep traditions,” while Switzerland’s, a series of interconnected, orb-like structures crisscrossed with greenery, is imagined to evoke a “magical atmosphere,” while a playground within showcases “Swiss excellence in innovation and creativity.”

Rather than being overtly grandiose, these pavilions are described as conjuring a more personal and profound experience.

This move toward buildings that feel approachable and engaging, fostering a sense of community and connection, chimes with the sentiment of Radha Agrawal, the founder and CEO of Daybreaker, known for its collective dance events, in creating her latest project, the non-profit Belong Center. With the mission to “end loneliness and empower belonging for all,” the project also relates to public spaces, with the center pledging to launch its Belong Benches in major markets, “to create public spaces for connection and belonging.” “When you walk around the city, you can feel a chemistry of loneliness and toxic individualism,” Agrawal told VML Intelligence in May, adding that she has “a whole vision for how we can brand cities for the future. Grey asphalt? No, let's make it rainbow color. Every awning, every restaurant, every wood bench, and sign…We can begin feeding this culture of belonging inside every piece of content that we create.”

Buildings that inspire an emotional reaction also tap into Emotioneering, a trend that VML Intelligence called out in The Future 100: 2024. According to VML Intelligence’s “The Age of Reenchantment” 2023 study, two-thirds of people globally say they want brands to help them feel intense emotions, while 77% say they “just want to feel something, to feel alive.” This movement toward truly idiosyncratic, human-centered architecture - with a personality of its own - aims to elicit such a response.

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