Have you ever stepped into a room and instantly felt your shoulders drop? Or walked into a space that made you feel inexplicably uneasy? That isn’t just your mood reacting. It’s your nervous system responding to your surroundings. We often treat buildings as backdrops—passive structures that house our routines. But they’re not passive. Buildings shape what we do, how we feel, and how we relate to one another. They don’t just reflect our behaviour. They influence it.

Take ceiling height, for instance. Research shows that low ceilings tend to promote focused, task-based thinking, while high ceilings are linked to abstract, creative thought. Or consider natural light, it does more than brighten a room. It boosts serotonin, helps regulate our sleep-wake cycles, and enhances memory and focus. These are not just design features; they are neurological interventions.

What We Once Knew About Our Buildings

Let’s take a walk to our old city’s pol houses that are examples of human-centred designs. Shared courtyards brought neighbours together, organically, without the pressure. Developed due to safety concerns and spatial availability, narrow lanes also helped control extreme heat. Jharokhas filtered light, gave privacy, and let people stay connected without being exposed. Kids had little nooks to play in.

Women had informal gathering points. Those designs were intuitive, empathetic, and deeply rooted in everyday well-being. These spaces supported something we often overlook: regulation. In neuroscience, regulation is about how well your body and mind stay balanced. Safe spaces help you regulate. Familiar faces, rhythmic sounds, soft textures, and good smells – they signal safety. And when your brain feels safe, it

Children found play spaces in nooks. Women found informal gathering points. These spaces supported what neuroscience calls regulation—our body’s ability to maintain emotional and physiological balance. Safe spaces, familiar rhythms, and sensory cues like soft textures and warm light signal to the brain that it’s okay to breathe, to connect, to rest.

They didn’t need neuroscience degrees to design this way. They just needed empathy.

What We’re Building Now

Fast forward to today’s gated towers and glass-fronted office blocks. Everything looks organised. Tidy. Modern. And yet, something essential is missing. Friendly doorstep chats, shaded benches under trees, spontaneous gatherings—gone.

We’ve replaced connection with control. In many cases, our buildings now function more like sealed containers than community spaces. Even our workplaces are often designed for efficiency, not imagination.

And your body notices. Even when you don’t consciously register it, your nervous system does. Over time, this affects more than mood—it influences sleep, immunity, and social behaviour.

This absence isn’t confined to homes or offices. Walk into a hospital, a school, or a government office. You’ll likely find a similar absence of empathy in design. No quiet corners. No shaded respite. No door opens into a courtyard. No window that lets you breathe.

We Are Building Fast. Can We Build Thoughtfully?

India is building rapidly—metros, smart cities, housing schemes, and highways. But speed without soul is not progress. Growth needs grounding.

Good design isn’t about picture-perfect snaps or chasing Pinterest trends. It’s about a participatory process.

It’s about how a place is then configured and how that space makes you feel. It’s about finding a patch of sunlight when you need it most. It’s about creating spaces that understand silence, softness, movement, mess, and mood. It’s about post-occupancy surveys and improving each building every year. It’s about building context-climate specific designs, adopting building certifications, and also improving policy.

It’s about noticing how people feel in a space and redesigning accordingly.

So What Should We Be Asking?

The next time you enter a building, or wait at a bus stop, or walk a footpath, pause for a moment and ask:

Does this space give something back to the people who use it?
Or does it quietly take something away?

Because buildings are speaking. In material, in movement, in mood.
And maybe it’s time we finally started listening.