Iqra Rafiq
PhD Scholar, IIT Roorkee
PhD Supervisor : Dr.Tina Pujara

Iqra Rafiq is a registered Architect with a specialization in Ekistics and Regional planning from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. She is a founder member of the Institute of Ekistics founded in 2016. She has previously worked as Assistant Professor in Noida Information University, Noida (2014-2017) and JNFAU, Hyderabad (2017). She is currently pursuing Ph.D. and is a member of ‘Happiness by Design’ research group in the department of Architecture and Planning at IIT Roorkee, India. Her area of Research aims in bridging the gap between Urban design and mental health and how different environment builds different perception to an individual. She is also interested in the perceived environment, stress and stressors, active spaces, mental disorders & social cognition. She believes it’s important for a planner and designer to address mental health in urban design and understand the key opportunities in promoting, innovating and creating healthy spaces in our cities.

Research Title: Association of outdoor neighborhood environments with Mental Health

Living in an urban environment is long known to be a risk factor for psychiatric diseases such as major depression or schizophrenia. Some recent research & showed that urban dwellers have a 20 per cent higher risk of developing anxiety disorders, and a 40 per cent higher risk of developing mood disorders  (Peen, Schoevers, Beekman, & Dekker, 2010). The Urban population shows a stronger brain response to stress, and stronger cognitive impairment under stress. Measureable negative outcomes associated with living in isolation include clinical depression, anxiety disorders, abnormal sensory arousal, and suicide. Given that dynamic evolutionary pressures helped to shape humans into the most social animals on the planet, it may not be surprising that we can “see” loneliness in the brain. When viewing pleasant and unpleasant pictures, lonely and non-lonely subjects show activation in different brain areas. One of the reward centers of the brain, the ventral striatum, is stimulated by love, food and other desirables. When non-lonely subjects viewed the pleasant pictures in the experiment they showed more activity in that region of the brain compared to the lonely participants (Cacioppo, Norris, Decety, Monteleone & Nusbaum,2009)

My research mainly focuses on three specific points as follows:

• Which factors of outdoor spaces in a neighbourhood environment that are critical in influencing the perceived urban stress?
• How do these factors interact ?
• How can these factors be addressed by planning and urban design to maximise the outdoor comfort?

The stress of city living leads to psychiatric disease mainly in people who are already at risk because of other environmental stresses or because they carry risk genes As healthcare design increasingly incorporates sustainable guidelines , we can apply the Evidence derived to address human needs that go beyond reduction of noxious and toxic exposures. Outdoor environment in a neighbourhood has significant impact on perceived urban stress, and hence can affect individuals’ mental health The world population is increasingly living in cities, and ever larger cities. This makes it really important to look at the psychological characteristics of city life. We will discuss the way people evaluate the presence of large crowds, and situations of high density, how they react to these situations and how environmental alterations may improve well-being. As an architect and planner the potential and value of urban design in promoting public mental health and wellbeing, opportunities must be appreciated and seized not just by the public health experts and by urban designers, but also by the policymakers, planners, and clients involved in commissioning and approving urban design projects. This is important because mental health promotion adds value to urban design that is needed to achieve successful cities all over the world. Architectural, technical and medical knowledge can, and in this manner accelerate such best practice to enhance human experience , performance and health itself. The interface between neuroscience and architecture that enables the provision of more rigorous data to support research based design. The ultimate goal is to support the design of health place for all : the healthy, the infirm, the gifted and those with special needs. And to promote and enhance the health and well being across all people.

Nothing in mental health will become clear unless we can look at the environment to understand restorative power of the outdoor environment and figure out what type of environment calm us down and what makes us feel uncomfortable.