JPJC 2023 JC2 GP Prelim P2 Insert

Name: ____________________________________ Class: _____________ JURONG PIONEER JUNIOR COLLEGE JC2 Preliminary Examination 2023 GENERAL PAPER 8807/02 Higher 1 30 Aug 2023 Paper 2 1 hour 30 minutes INSERT READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST Write your name and class in the spaces provided above. This Insert contains the passage for Paper 2. This document consists of 3 printed pages and 1 blank page.

2 Michael Bond writes about the hidden ways in which architecture and urban design af fect how we feel. 1 “We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us, ” mused Winston Churchill in 1943 while considering the repair of the bomb-ravaged House of Commons. M ore than 70 years on, he would doubtless be pleased to learn that neuroscientists and psychologist s have found plenty of evidence to back him up. For example, buildings and cities can affect our mood and well-being, and that specialised cells in our brains are attuned to the geo metry and arrangement of the spaces we inhabit. Yet, urban architects have often paid scant attention to the potential cognitive effects of their creations on a city’s inhabitants. The imperative to design something unique and individual tends to override considerations of how it might shape the behaviours of those who will live with it. That could be about to change. 5 2 Recently, the Conscious Cities Conference in London considered how cognitive scientists might make their discoveries more accessible to architects , designers, engineers, neuroscientists and psychologists. Greater interaction across the disciplines would reduce the chances of repeating such architectural horror stories as the 1950s Pruitt-Ig oe housing complex in Missouri, whose 33 featureless apartment blocks became notorious for the ir crime, squalor and social dysfunction. Critics argued that the wide open spaces between the blocks of modernist high-rises discouraged a sense of community, particularly as crime rates s tarted to rise. The project was eventually demolished in 1972, highlighting the need for greater consideration of behavioural insights in urban design. 10 15 3 Psychological studies today have consistently shown that people are strongly affec ted by building façades. If the façade is complex and interesting, it affects people i n a positive way; negatively if it is simple and monotonous. For example, during a study in M anhattan, subjects' arousal and mood states plummeted as they walked past the long, smoked-glass front age of a Whole Foods store, only to improve when they reached a stretch of lively restaur ants and stores, where (not surprisingly) they reported feeling a lot more liv ely. Urban specialist Charles Montgomery said this points to “an emerging disaster in street psychology ”. In his book Happy City, he warns, “As suburban retailers begin to colonise central cities, block after block of bric- a-brac and mom-and-pop-scale buildings and shops are being replaced by blank, cold spaces that effectively bleach street edges of conviviality.” 20 25 4 Another oft-replicated finding is that having access to green space such as woodlan d or a park can offset some of the stress of city living. Vancouver has made a vi rtue of this, with its downtown building policies geared towards ensuring that residents have a decent view of the mountains, forest and ocean to the north and west. As well as being restorative, green space appears to improve health. A study of the population of England in 2008 found t hat the health effects of inequality, which tends to increase the risk of circulatory disea se among those lower down the socioeconomic scale, are far less pronounced in greener areas. One theory is that the visual complexity of natural environments acts as a kind of mental balm. Virtual reality experiments found residential street scenes with the most architectural variation t he most mentally engaging. Most people also feel better in rooms with curved edges and rounded contours than in sharp-edged rectangular rooms. 30 35 5 The importance of urban design goes far beyond feel-good aesthetics. Urban l iving has been linked to an increased risk of mental disorders, including schizophrenia, depression, and chronic anxiety. Researchers attribute this to "social stress" caused by a lack of social bonding and cohesion within neighbourhoods. Furthermore, urban environments can alter brain biology, resulting in changes to specific brain regions associated with early-life stressful experiences. 40 6 It sounds counterintuitive: surely the sheer number of people makes social interaction mo re 45

3 likely. While this may be true superficially, the kind of meaningful social interactions that are crucial for mental health do not come easily in cities. Social isolation is now recog nised by urban authorities as a major risk factor for many illnesses. Therefore, urban desi gn that fosters genuine social interaction is crucial for creating a kinder and more inclusive society . Hence, sociologists have advised urban planners to arrange objects and artefacts in publ ic spaces in ways that nudge people physically closer together to encourage interaction. In 1975, the Project for Public Spaces transformed the way people used the Rockefeller Center in New York City by placing benches alongside the yew trees in its basement concourse (inst ead of people- repelling spikes), along with smaller parks and plazas throughout the complex to create a network of public spaces that serve a diverse community. 50 55 7 Enriching public spaces will not banish loneliness from cities, but it can help m ake residents feel more comfortable with their surroundings. Living among millions of strangers is a very unnatural state of affairs for a human being. Cities have the duty to accommodate this problem, to build a society where people can treat each other kindly even in such settin gs. That is more likely to happen when people feel good. 60 8 One thing guaranteed to make city dwellers feel negative is a constant sense of being lost or disorientated. Knowing how things relate to each other spatially is essential to feel connected to a place. Some cities are easier to navigate than others – New York’s grid-like street pattern makes it relatively straightforward, whereas London, with its hotchpotch of nei ghbourhoods all orientated differently and the Thames meandering through the middle, is notoriously confusing. A sense of direction is equally important inside buildings. One of t he most disorientating buildings is the Seattle Central Library, which has won multiple awards for its architecture. In the words of Northumbria University ’s Dalton, it is fascinating that a place so “universally admired by architects … can be so dysfunctional” . One of the issues is the huge one-way escalators that sweep visitors from the ground floor into the upper reaches with no obvious means of descent, defying expectations on how navigation works, which confuses people. One of the library ’s users commented that she had “left the building as soon as I could figure out how to get out, hoping I wouldn’t have an anxiety attack first.’’ 65 70 9 But that is the thing about cities: people who live in them do a good job of making them feel like home despite all the design and architectural obstacles that may confront them, be i t in a byzantine library or a sprawling park. A visible