Lean Space

Like most dystopian scenarios, the Black Mirror episode depicts an amplified societal concern. Watching it, one feels a familiar sense of desperation that comes along with working in sterile, physically and mentally draining environments—places that can actually take a real toll on one’s wellbeing as evidenced by the phenomenon of ‘sick building syndrome’.

‘Sick building syndrome’ didn’t exist until the 1980s. Around that time, office workers exposed to controlled air circulation and open office plans started reporting all kinds of symptoms, diseases and allergies. The irony was that modern architecture was designed to promote health and hygiene, but instead ended up turning against its occupants making them mentally and physically sick.

Princeton based architectural theorist Beatriz Colomina researched a phenomena that she termed ‘X-Ray Architecture', which links the white walls of modern architecture to the last century’s emerging psychology of health, paranoia and sanitation.⁹ Modern architecture, she explains, functioned as a machine for health, which was a response to real fears of the time; the fear of illness was more important for people than the alleged beauty of a modern white wall. As a response to genuine fears regarding fast-spreading tuberculosis of the 1920s, doctors and nurses would prescribe ridding one’s home of plants, curtains, carpets, ornaments, and keeping only a simple bed and table which would be easy to clean and would make it harder for dust to accumulate. This health-oriented mentality crept into workplaces at the time with good intention—but would eventually bring negative and unexpected side effects along with it due to the neglect of our more subtle physiological needs.

Dr Craig Knight of the University of Exeter undertook research to investigate the prevailing wisdom of the so-called lean space: the idea that if there is nothing in the space except the job to be done, workers will concentrate and be more productive. He explains his conclusion:

‘It didn’t make a whole lot of sense scientifically because there is no animal on the planet that thrives in a lean space. Why should a human being be any different? So we tested it and it doesn’t work at all. It’s an entirely toxic system.’¹⁰

Truth is, much of today’s built environment still lacks adequate natural light, natural ventilation, natural materials, vegetation, views of the outdoors, environmental shapes and forms, and other evolved affinities for the natural world. In many ways, these structures can be compared to the barren sensory-deprived cages of old-style zoos, now ironically banned as ‘inhumane.’

American biologist, naturalist and writer Edward O. Wilson’s theory as to why this is is that for most of the last 2 million years, humans lived in a natural world, relying on nature for food and shelter.¹¹ The amount of time spent in urban dwellings is a small sliver of the total time humans have spent on Earth. Looking at it this way, our shift from forest life to freeways and overflowing cities has been very recent and very dramatic. The human brain evolved in a biocentric world,¹¹ not a machine-regulated world. It would then perhaps be unusual for all of the learning rules related to that world have been erased in our minds over the span of a few thousand years, even in the small minority of people who have existed for more than one or two generations in wholly urban environments.

A long felt hypothesis had finally been studied and put into words. Because of industrialization, focus was put on protecting human health and therefore increasing productivity and industry with little to no regard for nature—despite the fact that studies have proven that parts of cities that are devoid of nature have worse immune systems, higher crime rates and lower quality of life than areas that do.¹³

⁸ Churchill, Winston. 1944. Speech in the House of Commons on October the 28th.
⁹ Bartoli, Sandra, and Kito Nedo. 2015. “X-Ray Architecture.” Frieze.Com. Frieze. 2015. https://frieze.com/article/x-ray-architecture.
¹⁰ Moulds, Josephine. 2018. “Gardening Leave: Why Are Offices Turning into Botanical Spaces?” The Guardian. The Guardian. February 19, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2018/feb/19/gardening-leave-why-are-offices-turning-into-botanical-spaces.
¹¹ Wilson, Edward O. 2003. Biophilia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.
¹² DesJardins, Joseph R. 2019. “Biocentrism, Ethics.” In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/biocentrism.