The impact of urban architecture on health: the PAKARA model

Abstract

Humankind is in constant interaction with the environment. If this interaction leads to individual internalization of the environment, which is also called “appropriation” in psychology, it has a positive effect on health and wellbeing. To promote appropriation, urban architecture must respond to human needs. The PAKARA model illustrates the dynamic interaction of these needs with urban architecture, distinguishing three sectors: preventive, curative, and rehabilitative architecture. The PAKARA model was developed in 2019 at the Technical University of Munich. In addition to the model, the article explains three central needs that, influenced by urban architecture, can lead to health-promoting saturation or health-damaging over- or undersaturation: stimulation, identification, and privacy. Conclusively, it is shown that the future challenge is to expand close interdisciplinary cooperation against the background of a drastic increase in the global urban population and an associated complexity of need-oriented design. The needs of the individual – even if they contradict each other and change over the course of a lifetime – are the driving motor behind the health of an entire community. Urban architecture has the potential to keep this motor running, or, destroy it.