Lennard Institute Announces Complementary IMCL Membership Program For All Attendees at 40th Anniversary Conference in Potsdam

Benefits in the no-obligation program include a discount for the 25th Anniversary INTBAU World Congress during the following week; optional membership carries no obligation

ABOVE, the beautiful IMCL Potsdam locale offers many lessons for livable cities, towns and suburbs, including walkability, bike infrastructure, public space, markets, mixed-use development, and much more. In addition, attendees from around the world will share their own rich lessons for effective actions in making cities livable at the conference.

POTSDAM, GERMANY - Preparations are proceeding for the 62nd International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) conference in the beautiful and instructive locale of Potsdam, Germany, October 15-19, 2025. This conference comes at a critical time, as the professions and disciplines of the built environment are at a global watershed moment – challenged as never before to meet the pressing needs of the urban future. Europe in particular is stepping into a newly energized role as a global leader in meeting the challenges of the future.

The Lennard Institute has announced that all attendees at the conference will be given a complementary membership in the new IMCL membership body, an honorific position with no cost or obligation. Membership is optional but attendees will be automatically enrolled unless they opt out. Members may designate themselves "Member, IMCL" or "Member, International Making Cities Livable" and may use the honorific "IMCL" after their names.

Perhaps more important, members are eligible for discounts and other program benefits, including a 20% discount to the 25th Anniversary INTBAU World Congress, taking place in London immediately following the IMCL conference (22-24 October). Tours and other activities will be offered between the two events. We will announce other benefits in the near future, including additional content and activities.

The theme of the Potsdam conference is, “What Is the Architecture of the (LIVABLE) Future?” This is a watershed moment in urban history, when the professions of the built environment are challenged as never before to meet the pressing needs of the urban future. The architecture profession in particular is confronted by demands to be more relevant to contemporary challenges and needs. One manifestation is a growing movement of citizens unsatisfied by “modern” business-as-usual building designs, and demanding an architecture that integrates the richer qualities of history and nature. At the same time, new findings from the sciences are discrediting old orthodoxies, and illuminating the unmet human factors of our urban world.

Featured topics will include improving public space and walkability, balancing transport, targeting effective climate action, identifying new financial tools and strategies, and exploring fascinating new research on cognitive architecture, neuroscience, complexity, and of course, AI, its role and challenges.

As always, we will gather to share peer-to-peer knowledge in a beautiful, convivial setting, with both formal and informal opportunities to interact and share knowledge. We will not just discuss the challenges, but explore case studies of those who have made impressive progress, and their specific tools and strategies. We also examine other case studies from around the world, as well as the latest research on urban challenges and successes.

Our last conference in Cortona, Italy in November 2024 included city leaders from the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Attendee comments included “Truly a great conference,” “Fabulous sessions… Wow!,” “It was terrific,” “Thank you for hosting this magnificent event!” and “Thank you for the great conference sessions… [and] the knowledge sharing and inspired messages from people from around the world.”

Our 62nd conference venue will be the MAXX Hotel Sanssouci, at the gates of the beautiful Sanssouci Park, and within walking distance of much of Potsdam's rich urban and architectural history -- including fascinating new projects now under way. In addition to the conference, we will also have opportunities for study tours and exploration of the rich history of the city and its region – not only its 20th century upheavals, but many centuries of architectural and urban history.

The location is easily accessible from the Berlin Brandenburg Airport via the S-Bahn train and other modes, and the neighborhood offers many excellent hotel choices at a range of prices. October is an excellent time to travel in Germany, with lower-cost travel, fewer crowds, and generally beautiful crisp autumn weather. There are excellent opportunities for convenient side trips to other parts of Germany and Europe.

ATTENDEE SPACE IS STRICTLY LIMITED by the conference venue size, and attendees will be accommodated on a first-come, first-served basis. Please register as soon as you are able. For more information, please visit https://www.imcl.online/potsdam-2025.

We hope you can join us in the beautiful Berlin and Potsdam region!

How can we apply urban research more effectively to make better cities, towns and suburbs?

The 62nd International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) conference in Potsdam, Germany, October 15-18, will take up this important question, among others

ABOVE, the "new urbanist" neighborhood of Orenco Station, in the Portland, Oregon region, is one of many that offer compelling research findings about their positive results. Orenco Station showed a reduction in trip generation and parking demand of over half of ITE manual standards, translating into significant financial and ecological benefits. Photo: Michael Mehaffy (former project manager for the master developer)

A fascinating new research project at the University of Notre Dame in the USA is addressing a thorny problem: a growing body of research is documenting the many significant benefits of compact, walkable, mixed cities, of the kind that are common in many parts of Europe -- but the lessons are not getting through to the majority of building projects around the world.

The findings are compelling: the characteristics of "the new urbanism" -- that is, the patterns of traditional city form adapted to a contemporary context -- can convey significant, measurable economic, social, environmental, and health benefits.

Among the findings:

• Walkable mixed-use or new urbanist development can save an average of 38 percent on upfront costs for new construction of roads, sewers, water lines and other infrastructure, generate 10 times more tax revenue per acre than conventional suburban development, and can reduce the costs of ongoing delivery of public services including police, ambulance and fire by an average of 10%

• New urbanist development can reduce trip generation and parking demand by over half of ITE manual standards, resulting in significant savings to municipalities, businesses and homeowners, and reducing negative impacts on land, water and air quality.

• Homes in New Urbanist neighborhoods command price premiums of up to 14.9%, reflecting high demand for walkability and mixed-use development. (This also indicates the need for more supply to ease demand and lower prices.)

• A 5% increase in walkability leads to a 32.1% increase in time spent walking, a 6.5% reduction in vehicle miles traveled, and a measurable decrease in air pollutants.

• Residents of walkable neighborhoods are approximately 50% more likely to achieve recommended levels of physical activity compared to those in less walkable areas. Additionally, they are about 24% less likely to experience obesity.

• Residents of walkable neighborhoods report significantly and measurably higher levels of social trust and civic engagement than those in car-dependent suburbs.

• Streets in compact, walkable urban areas are measurably safer than sprawling suburbs, due to lower vehicle speeds and pedestrian-friendly street designs, resulting in fewer deaths and injuries.

• Older adults living in walkable areas experience measurably lower rates of depression, stress- related illnesses, and dementia.

• Traditional walkable and mixed-use development reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 20–40%, making it a key strategy for fighting climate change.

• Auto-oriented developments, including big-box retail, are linked to higher rates of traffic-related injuries and even deaths, while pedestrian-friendly retail areas see fewer crashes.

• High-tech firms prefer compact, walkable urban environments, boosting economic growth.

• Traditional street patterns—such as those found in historic city centers—are associated with lower crime rates, while modern suburban layouts show higher rates of burglary and street robbery.

• Compact development reduces infrastructure costs by 38% and generates 10 times more tax revenue per acre than conventional suburban sprawl.

• Most members of the public strongly prefer traditional and vernacular architecture, and there is evidence that those characteristics are more supportive of popularity and success in urban development.

The research project, commissioned by the Notre Dame School of Architecture, has compiled a representative database of over 220 research papers in a wide range of disciplines, including medicine, psychology, anthropology, sociology, ecology, economics, law, policy, and other fields. The research assesses the impacts of new urbanism (or other related variants of "traditional city form") on health, well-being, safety, social activity, economic costs and benefits, and the natural environment.

IMCL and Lennard Institute Executive Director Michael Mehaffy is leading the research project, as part of The Center for Housing and Community Regeneration at the School of Architecture, University of Notre Dame, led by Professor Marianne Cusato. Contributors include fellow Senior Researchers David Brain and Jim Brainard, both part of the CH&CR initiative. Jim Brainard is the long-time mayor of Carmel, Indiana, an IMCL award-winning example of a suburban transformation into a national model of livability. Jim Brainard is also a board member of the Lennard Institute/IMCL, and David Brain, a sociologist, is a noted speaker at several IMCL conferences. Dean Stefanos Polyzoides, who commissioned the research, is a co-founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

The upcoming 62nd conference of the IMCL, to be held October 15-18 in Potsdam, Germany, will explore the range of research findings, as well as the larger challenge of communication and implementation.

A key conclusion is that the research is there, but in fragmented form. What is needed is to put together, and to share, the "big picture" -- how all these benefits work together as a system, and often contribute more in combination than any one of them in isolation. That's one benefit of this kind of survey research.

Another important outcome of survey research is to identify key gaps in the research, and that is certainly an important outcome of this project. One of the most notable gaps is in project level research, assessing the achievements and goals of specific projects.

Some of this research does exist -- and it is very encouraging. Portland's Orenco Station, for example, showed reductions in automobile trip generation and parking demand of over half of the Institute of Transportation Engineers' standards, contributing to significant economic and ecological benefits. The community also showed significantly higher indications of "social capital" (levels of trust and cooperation between residents) as well as much higher rates of walking by residents. (IMCL Executive Director Michael Mehaffy was the project manager for the master developer of Orenco Station.)

The Notre Dame research project has also documented many economic benefits of new urbanist development. (Reductions in parking demand and trip generation are two of the many examples, since they reduce costs of land, construction, and maintenance.) At the same time, the project also documented many of the remaining barriers to new urbanist development. These obstacles make New Urbanism much harder to implement, and they constitute hidden subsidies for “business as usual.” This too is a critical area of much-needed follow-up research, providing much-needed implementation streamlining for policy and practice.

One of the more surprising barriers may be our own misunderstanding as practitioners of the usefulness of urban research. There are common misconceptions about the role of research in relation to practice. One is the belief that a given finding must be conclusive – must be “proof” – or else the effort to engage the research is futile.

But in the world of research, rarely does one finding conclusively “prove” a fact. In most fields of research, the goal is not “proof” but the “preponderance of evidence” – that is, we develop and confirm our theories as guides to our practice, unless and until they are disproven. Until then, our goal is to show that our theory is better than the others out there – it is more likely to “deliver the goods,” in whatever field.

Like any practitioner, advocates of walkable mixed use and new urbanism certainly have their own theories about the patterns and practices that will result in better outcomes for human beings, as judged by them, and by us all. We have the same obligation to demonstrate the validity of our theories as any professional, if we are to be credible, and to drive successful reform with persuasive evidence to rebut our critics.

Perhaps our role as practitioners can be compared to that of medical practitioners. While we usually don’t conduct the research ourselves, it’s important to be aware of it, and to be able to communicate its findings to our “patients” – the governments, businesses, and citizens that we serve. Too often, however, the research doesn’t find its way into practice and policy, leading to a lack of progress on critical urban issues. It’s as though a series of new life-saving medicines were discovered, only to be ignored by practitioners.

The great urban journalist Jane Jacobs may have put it best when she accused her generation of planners of practicing “pseudo-science” – seemingly almost neurotic in their “determination to imitate empiric failure and ignore empiric success.”

We have the empirical success to accumulate, to show, and to learn from – and it’s urgent that we do so.

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NOTE: A version of this article previously ran on the journal CNU Public Square. Our thanks to editor Rob Steuteville.

New Research By Cambridge-Led Team Shows How Building Façades Trigger Visual Stress

Cambridge researcher and IMCL speaker Cleo Valentine, along with her colleagues at Cambridge, The University of Essex and Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, find disturbing health implications

Left, the Marsham Towers in London, by the architect Eric Bedford, remarkably unpopular and demolished in 2002. Right, the Barcode Project in Oslo, representing "state of the art" contemporary architectural design. While such compositions might be intended as worthy artistic expressions by the architects, they can also have profoundly negative impacts on people who must experience them unintentionally. Images: Malcoml Campbell via Wikimedia Commons; Bjørn Erik Pedersen via Wikimedia Commons.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This post is part of a series of discussion posts for the upcoming 62nd International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) conference.

CAMBRIDGE, UK - Can a building make you feel uncomfortable – even unwell – without your full awareness of the reason? According to a new study by researchers from the University of Cambridge and their collaborators, the answer is yes – and the reason may lie in how your brain unconsciously processes the visual patterns of architectural design.

In a new paper just published in the journal Buildings, researchers Cleo Valentine, Arnold J. Wilkins, Heather Mitcheltree, Olivier Penacchio, Bruce Beckles, and Ian Hosking reveal how repetitive, high-contrast patterns commonly used in modern façades can cause subtle yet measurable strain on the human visual system. Using artificial intelligence (AI) and computational tools, they find evidence that some architectural designs might literally stress out our brains.

Cleo Valentine, the lead researcher, is a past speaker at the International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) conference series, and she is scheduled to participate in the next conference in Potsdam, Germany, October 15-19, 2025.

The Brain and the Built Environment

As the authors note, it is well known that our surroundings affect our mental and physical health. Sunlight, noise levels, and even ceiling height have been shown to influence mood and behavior. This study explores how the visual patterns encountered every day – especially on building exteriors – interact with the brain’s processing systems.

The authors suggest that the human visual system evolved in natural environments with soft, irregular patterns, but modern architecture often features repetitive, high-contrast designs that deviate from these natural characteristics. For at least some people, exposure to the modern patterns may lead to discomfort, headaches, and even more serious neurological reactions.

This phenomenon, known as visual stress, has been documented in individuals with migraines, photosensitive epilepsy, and sensory processing disorders. However, the researchers propose that even people without these conditions might experience subtle strain from prolonged exposure to visually stressful environments.

A New Way to Measure Visual Discomfort

Studying how architecture impacts the brain is challenging. Traditional methods rely on artificial laboratory patterns – like black-and-white stripes – or surveys asking people how they feel when looking at photos of buildings. These approaches often lack either realism or scientific rigor.

To address these challenges, the team developed a hybrid method. They used Midjourney, a generative AI tool, to create a series of nine different building façades. Each design was systematically varied in features like contrast, repetition, geometric shapes, and spatial frequency (a measure of how often elements repeat in a visual field).

The designs were then analyzed using the Visual Stress Analysis Tool (ViStA), a computational system that measures how much an image deviates from the statistical patterns found in natural scenes. When an image contains too much energy at certain spatial frequencies, especially around three cycles per degree (a scale to which human vision is highly sensitive), it is more likely to induce discomfort.

The researchers liken this to audio feedback for the eyes: when patterns are too regular and high-contrast at certain scales, they may overload the visual cortex, leading to effects ranging from mild irritation to, in extreme cases, migraines or seizures.

What They Found

The findings reveal that façades with highly regular, high-contrast patterns showed the strongest indicators of visual stress. In particular, designs featuring vertical slats or metal screens repeated at around three cycles per degree produced the highest stress metrics.

One façade with closely spaced vertical wooden slats (at precisely three cycles per degree) showed peak residuals of 1.1 x 10^10 in the ViStA analysis, far exceeding the baseline design. Another, with layered vertical metal screens, also produced elevated stress markers, even though its patterns repeated at a higher frequency.

Implications for Architects and Urban Designers

This research emerges at a time when cities around the world are grappling with the health impacts of dense, visually intense urban environments. Architects often favor clean, repetitive lines for aesthetic or functional reasons, but the study suggests such choices may have unintended consequences.

The authors argue that not all repetition is bad, but designers should be aware that certain patterns, especially when combined with high contrast and reflective materials, can create environments that subtly fatigue the human brain.

The methods developed in this study could serve as a design aid. The ViStA tool can generate “heat maps” of façades, highlighting areas likely to cause visual stress. Designers might use this feedback to refine their projects, balancing aesthetic goals with neurophysiological well-being.

Limitations and Next Steps

While the study provides valuable insights, the authors caution that it is an early step in a complex field. Their analysis relied on static, two-dimensional images, which do not fully capture the dynamic way people experience buildings as they move through space.

Future research plans include expanding the work using virtual reality and real-world studies. Ultimately, the team aims to link computational predictions with physiological measurements from real people, such as heart rate variability and brain activity, to validate and refine the model.

The researchers are also exploring equity issues. They suggest that visually stressful environments may disproportionately affect neurodiverse individuals and those in lower-income neighborhoods. Future studies could map visual stress across urban areas to inform more inclusive design policies.

Rethinking the Visual Language of Cities

This study highlights an important idea: architecture is not just about how buildings look, but how they make people feel at a neurological level. It adds to a growing body of research on the impact of the built environment on health and well-being. (Another example is the research of UCL Professor of Neuroaesthetics Semir Zeki, also a former speaker at the IMCL, who has noted that the experience of beauty in architecture can "nourish the emotional brain" and is "not a luxury, only a necessity".)

As cities grow and design trends evolve, integrating insights from neuroscience may lead to environments that are not only beautiful but also healthier for the mind. These and other findings indicate that while architects have long considered light, sound, and space, they now might benefit from thinking about the visual patterns people process every day. Even small changes in design could make cities and buildings healthier for everyone.

The next time you find yourself squinting at a building or feeling inexplicably uneasy in an urban street, your brain could be sending a message: it's not you, it's the architecture that's the problem. We deserve better, and it's time to demand better.

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For more information about the upcoming IMCL Potsdam conference and travel logistics, please visit https://www.imcl.online/potsdam-2025.

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Begun in 1985, the International Making Cities Livable (IMCL) conference series, hosted by the Lennard Institute for Livable Cities, has become a premier international gathering and resource platform for more livable, humane and ecological cities and towns. Our flagship conferences are held in beautiful and instructive cities hosted by visionary leaders able to share key lessons. We are a 501(c)(3) public benefit corporation based in the USA, with alternating events and activities in Europe and other parts of the world.

Attendee comments about previous conferences:

“A wonderful conference.”

“It was brilliantly organized!”

“I left the conference encouraged - there are many challenges ahead of us,

but I am so invigorated by the tenacity of those stepping up to face them.”

“This is the best conference I've ever attended. There was much to take in;

so many people with exceptional experience.”