A Significant but Under-Appreciated Benefit of Landscape Architecture: Supporting People’s Capacity to Pay Attention

Abstract

Our capacity to pay attention — to direct our focus toward one idea or task while excluding from our minds a host of competing stimuli and thoughts — is key to every human achievement. But our ability to pay attention is a limited resource, it fatigues with use. Scientists have recently discovered that having contact with green spaces, even in otherwise dense urban settings, is an effective way to restore our ability to focus. Thus, green spaces in the form of parks, interconnected green corridors, street trees, rain gardens, green roofs and green walls do more than provide ecosystem services. They help people concentrate their attention and in doing so, help us achieve our goals in life. One implication of these findings is that we should re-double our efforts to ensure that we provide nature at every doorstep.

Keywords

Attention / Restoration / Mental Fatigue / Landscape Architecture / Green Infrastructure

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press