“The design of the built environment has profound impacts on human health and social well-being. However, the significant opportunity for architecture, urban design, and spatial planning to intentionally enhance human life and address societal challenges is currently overlooked.”
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COMPASSIONATE PLACES
MATTER SPACE SOUL's design approach – the Compassionate Places Method – emphasizes the human impacts of built environments on health and social well-being.
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“Compassionate Places” is both a design philosophy and vision for change, as well as a practically applicable design method. It was published by the Journal of Urban Design and Mental Health in 2025.
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​ The core idea is to move beyond traditional design approaches that focus on aesthetics, utility and physical factors to a more human-centric perspective that intentionally considers people's experiences and needs in their environments.
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The method creates a new interdisciplinary design model, incorporating insights from fields like neuroscience, public health, environmental psychology, social sciences, and the arts.
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INTENTIONAL DESIGN
The goal is to create spaces and places that support human flourishing by intentionally enhancing user experience and responding to pressing urban issues, such as mental health, loneliness and the need for more inclusive and equitable places.
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It provides a structured framework for designers and planners to systematically address these aspects in their work, aiming for a paradigm shift where human well-being is central to design and planning.
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This approach was implemented in 2023 within a London local authority's spatial planning processes as design standards for "Place Quality," aiming to embed health, social well-being, and inclusivity into design and planning practices.
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The approach advocates for a new way of evaluating design success, moving beyond quantitative metrics to qualitative benchmarks focused on enriching people's lives.
IN PRACTICE
The Compassionate Places Method has developed through design projects from 2013 and is applied in practice to the studio’s commercial projects working with developers, design teams, landowners and the public sector.
This research sets the stage for a new approach to architecture, urban design and planning, aiming to create environments that systematically and intentionally support human health, social well-being, and flourishing.
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