A growing body of research indicates that physical space profoundly affects our brain health. The capacity of our buildings and public spaces to be regenerative in that regard remains largely untapped, however.
The key resources for developing brain capital are brain skills—cognitive processes such as memory, attention, and critical thinking; and brain health—the overall functioning of an individual’s brain throughout that person’s life.
“The built environment has a profound impact on our brain health, shaping everything from cognition and creativity to overall well-being,” says Harris Eyre, a physician and neuroscientist, senior fellow for brain and society at Rice University, and executive director of the Brain Capital Alliance. “Support for environments that foster mental wellness and cognitive performance is not just wise policy—it is an economic and social imperative.”
Brain disorders cost the global economy $5 trillion annually and are projected to hit $16 trillion by 2030, according to McKinsey Health Institute. Therefore, reducing risk and enhancing resilience of mental and neurological health in the workplace translates to real value for employers through increased recruitment and retention, productivity, creativity and innovation, adaptability and learning capacity, and reduced health care costs.
Architecture and design can help develop what neuroscientists, economists, and policymakers refer to as “brain capital”—a community’s collective mental, emotional, and social strengths that help people create new ideas, adapt to challenges, and boost economic growth. Work remains ahead of us to realize a brain healthy economy.
The Building Brains Coalition—formed in 2024 by HKS in partnership with the Center for Advanced Design Research and Evaluation (CADRE), Brain Capital Alliance, Rice University’s Baker Institute Neuro-Policy Program, and Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas—seeks to bridge architecture and other real estate professions with neuroscience, psychology, climate science, and public health to design for resilience, well-being, and cognitive thriving. The coalition is working with such organizations as the World Economic Forum and McKinsey Health Institute’s Brain Economy Action Forum to influence global policy and investment strategies and to realize the potential of smart capital infrastructure investments.
HKS’ Atlanta office demonstrates this type of investment. When relocating, we opted for a smaller real estate footprint, even though our team was growing. The design of the new office, which we opened in 2023, prioritizes “we” space (shared environments that encourage collaboration and team building) over “me” space (individual workstations). The space also includes flexible areas and furniture that afford five different workplace needs: focus, exploration and ideation, collaboration and co-creation, rest and reflection, and social connection.
We paired this design framework with three habits of workplace culture and communication to provide people with agency and choice over where and how they work. We also invested in a year of collective SMART brain training for our Atlanta team. This training—which focused on strategic attention, integrated reasoning, and innovation—gave us a common language to use in building our firmwide knowledge base on brain health.
Because so many variables are involved in the design principles and policies we applied to our Atlanta office, tying any one intervention to specific outcomes is difficult. Here, however, is what we achieved, based on a team survey conducted from October 2023 to April 2024 (full report here):
- Reduced rentable square feet (RSF)/employee by 35 percent, with less than 20 percent of the office allocated to workstations
- Transformed our style of working; employees reported reductions in multi-tasking and a 37 percent increase in daily completion of focused tasks
- More energized and fulfilled team; staff realized that taking regular breaks helped them feel more replenished and ready to tackle the tasks at hand
- Increased retention rates, reducing costs of recruitment, new hire training, and lost knowledge
- Improved 2024 Gallup employee engagement survey scores. People are leaning into their teams and their work. Employee engagement is associated with greater productivity, improved performance, lower turnover, and better recruiting success.
Beyond the workplace
The built environment’s influence on brain health extends beyond the workplace to all the places we live, play, learn, and heal.
Parks, green open spaces, green infrastructure, walkable downtowns, active storefronts in retail areas, and entertainment districts contribute to our brain economy. These civic investments promote connections with nature, reduce the heat island effect, and enhance physical activity, all of which are brain capital drivers. Building meaningful relationships and authentic pride in community through placemaking and social cohesion provides a social infrastructure in parallel with our physical and digital infrastructure.
Concerns about early childhood development, K-12 learning outcomes, and the future of higher education are at a historical high. Learning environments could be more intentionally designed to support brain health. Students’ growth and development are influenced by factors such as offgassing from building material; thermal, visual and acoustic comfort; classroom layout and ceiling height; and access to daylight and views of nature.
As we age, our bodies begin to decline. You can start doing things today, however, to enhance your cognitive potential—to strength-train your brain, just like you care for the rest of your body. Enriched sensory environments reduce the risk of cognitive decline and help maintain cognitive health. Creating locally authentic and vibrantly designed environments rooted in community and place, with a large range of sensory-rich details for residents, accommodates a multitude of experiences, needs, and abilities. Spaces designed to reflect the local community and include vibrant, engaging experiences create familiar places that can be adapted to meet a wide range of needs.
Our health care systems know that preventive care provides a much more affordable and resilient approach to meeting public health and critical health infrastructure needs than does triaging health issues after they arise. In urban design and architectural contexts, resilience encompasses economic, social, environmental, infrastructural, and health dimensions, each of which affects brain health. Designing medical campuses and their surrounding communities with ample shade and inviting outdoor spaces prioritizes physical activity and social interaction. Planning that supports natural beauty, civic pride, and access to nutritious food contributes to improved physical, mental, and cognitive health. Campuses that function as routine gathering places for wellness and connection are well positioned to serve as beacons of support and safe havens for the broader community, building trust and relationships, long before times of crisis.
Climate health, brain health
According to Boston College’s Annals of Global Health, “Globally, the additional societal costs of mental disorders due to changes in climate-related hazards, air pollution, and inadequate access to green space are estimated to be almost $47 billion annually in 2030. These estimated costs will continue to grow exponentially to $537 billion in 2050, relative to a baseline scenario in which these environmental factors remain at 2020 levels.”
Intrinsic connections exist between brain capital, climate, carbon, and regenerative design. Indeed, many of the challenges climate action seeks to address are also environmental determinants of brain health. They include stresses related to environmental disasters and mass migration, pollution (air, water, land, and food contamination), lack of restorative green and blue spaces, limited availability of local and nutritious food, and reduced microbial diversity.
Honing our cognitive potential—including critical reasoning, creativity, adaptability, and new skill acquisition—will help us address the biggest challenges of our time. These challenges include designing for equitable housing; societal advancement; and One Health, an international, integrated approach to optimizing the health of people, all life, and restorative natural systems. Alignment between our existing frameworks such as municipal climate policy and third-party certifications already exist. Layering in the brain economy will amplify and increase the good work already begun.
What does a brain-healthy, climate-positive city look like? The 2015 ULI Building Healthy Places Toolkit provides tangible recommendations for foundational physical activity, food and water, and environmental best practices.
On the 10th anniversary of this seminal work, ULI added modules for indoor air quality, noise, and social connection. The 24 recommendations included throughout the toolkit are also brain capital drivers. Beyond these best practices identified by ULI, design strategies to consider that promote brain health at the scale of our urban environments, buildings, or interior environments include:
- Design for all the senses and embrace variability or change, instead of a consistently uniform ASHRAE prescription
- Intentionally design for neurodiversity and varying levels of sensory perception
- Identify opportunities to insert nature noises that soothe or that surprise and delight
- Consider circadian lighting in 18- or 24-hour shift workplaces
- Explore opportunities for using bio-based finish materials, not only for biophilic benefits but also for product circularity and the social and environmental benefits in the places of material extraction and product manufacture
- Limit building products that include chemicals of concern and plastics, which are linked to brain toxicity and neurodegenerative disease
- Design spaces for innovation and learning with a variety of environments to afford desired behavior: focus, exploration/ideation, collaboration/co-creation, rest/reflection, and social connection
- Align operations with management and communications. Plan programming to build community, enhance agency, and foster relationships of respect and trust
- Incorporate art and moments of wonder
- Selectively use visual connection to enhance the impact of social hubs or gathering spaces
- Instill an authentic sense of place and discovery by celebrating the culture, history, or unique attributes of a community
At ULI’s 2025 Spring Meeting, I moderated a discussion about creativity, designing for neurodiversity and community, and the brain-climate connection, with panelists Harris Eyre, Theo Edmonds, and Sheba Ross, all members of the Building Brains Coalition. (You can view a recording of that discussion on Knowledge Finder.)
What I’ve learned from our neuroscientist friends who are sharing this journey of discovery with us is that our brains are plastic. You don’t need to wait for disease or decline to actively build your brain health. And the real estate investments we make today will drive our brain economy opportunities of the future. The policies we enact will coordinate access, amplify opportunity, and accelerate high-impact investments to protect and preserve our collective brain capital.
