For solo explorers, a solitude-friendly ‘Paradise’ amid the crowds

Written by Francesca Specter

Public space, by definition, is meant to be shared. So why are architects throughout the world designing parks, airport lounges, museums, shops and other communal areas to accommodate the lone individual?

Americans are spending an increasing amount of time alone, and we do not need political candidates to remind us that single-person households are rising throughout the world. Last year, the World Health Organization deemed loneliness a “global health threat.”

With more of us flying solo, more spaces are catering to visitors who may or may not be in the company of others. Urban planners and architects are recognizing a paradox: Public spaces designed to increase opportunities for social interaction may have the unintended consequence of making isolated people feel marginalized, whereas spaces that support solitary experiences in the midst of a crowd may encourage a feeling of belonging.

Wutopia Lab, an architectural studio in Shanghai, used this paradox as a springboard for its design of the Monologue Art Museum, a cultural center for visitors to explore in collective solitude. Opened in 2022 in Qinhuangdao, a popular seaside resort in northeast China, the center fosters “the peaceful solitude that emerges only when you’re experiencing it in public,” said Yu Ting, the co-founder of Wutopia Lab.

The museum is laid out as a sequence of locations, including a tearoom, a yoga room, an art gallery and a water garden with six trees. (The arboreal arrangement pays homage to “Six Gentlemen,” a 14th-century painting that is a representation of seclusion.)

Yu said he and his team designed the museum to be a “paradise for the individual” where “one can find solitude and express their inner thoughts.” He described the surrounding city as a cacophonous tourist destination that chips away at “the opportunity to be with oneself.” The museum is a form of compensation, offering visitors something they do not normally experience in their own homes.

Because even introverts frequently like company. According to Erin Peavey, a design leader in health and well-being at the global firm HKS Architects, shared public spaces can allow lone individuals “to feel a part of the world but not have to engage in it or feel a responsibility to perform.”

Peavey cited prospect-refuge theory, or the concept that people feel secure in spaces that allow them to observe their surroundings while remaining hidden themselves. Originally formulated in 1975 by Jay Appleton, a British geographer, the theory was later applied to built environments that were developed with four features: a view or outlook, partial framing of that view, a degree of visual complexity and a degree of “discoverability.”

Harvey Milk Terminal 1 at San Francisco International Airport, whose final section opened in June, is one of Peavey’s examples. HKS designed the terminal to include a row of lounge chairs looking out to the flight line. The seats are buffered from behind by a tall planter that prevents other travelers from getting too close. This space, Peavey said, allows its solitary occupants a moment to close their eyes or read or write. And where better? “For many of us, traveling is an opportunity to reflect,” she said.

Views to the world beyond the terminal provide the visual complexity that prospect-refuge theory calls for, she added. The act of watching planes land and take off “legitimizes” solitude in the way that the comfortably distracting sight of an open kitchen in a restaurant may appeal to solo diners. “You feel entitled to just sit there and enjoy the beautiful view with passive fascination as your brain goes into a relaxed state,” she said.

In contrast, spaces where individuals feel noticed by other people (becoming the “view” themselves) are more menacing — which is why sitting in the center of a restaurant is many solo diners’ idea of hell.

Neil Hubbard, a partner at the London design and architecture firm Heatherwick Studio, said subtle details can prevent the unpleasant feeling of exposure.

As the lead architect on Azabudai Hills, a mixed-use development in Tokyo that was completed last year, Hubbard worked with the natural undulations of the 6-acre valley site (the ground level varies by about 36 feet) to break up the space and create flexibility.

Nooks and crannies in the form of small parks and courtyards coexist with larger gathering spaces and a 30-foot-long communal bench, all at different elevations. Something so simple as a terrace raised a few feet above ground level offers refuge, Hubbard said: “You’re sitting at people’s shoulder height, looking over their heads, rather than through a crowd of bodies.”

Poets’ Park, a .06-acre pocket park in the Fitzrovia neighborhood of London, offers a similar sense of seclusion despite its central urban location.

“Tall planting screens off the busy road and creates an acoustic buffer from the outside world, allowing you to hear your own thoughts,” said Peter Greaves at Make Architects, the London studio behind the design. The park’s modest size — itself a nook within a big city — achieves the “difficult balance” between privacy and being hidden away, “which can feel unsafe,” Greaves said.

(Graham Dickie/The New York Times)

Urban pocket parks get that balance right, said Cecilia Lindström, an urban researcher in London, which accounts for the popularity of tiny forests, or the dense, layered planting of tree species native to an area. The practice was pioneered by Akira Miyawaki, a Japanese botanist, and has been adopted in places as disparate as Amsterdam and New Delhi. In contrast, larger green spaces may hold a “sense of danger,” especially at night, Lindström said.

As long as a safety requirement is met, nature is an important element of solitude-friendly design, allowing us to “retreat without feeling like we’re necessarily lonely,” Lindstrom added. Research has also linked natural sounds and smells to lowered anxiety and stress.

Should solitude no longer be desired, urban green space promotes greater social cohesion. An environment that welcomes individuals is also primed for connections, fulfilling the fourth principle of prospect-refuge theory: discoverability. Simply put, chance meetings are far more likely to happen when people venture from their homes.

A gentle, nonprescriptive approach is best, Greaves said: “If you just put people together and say, ‘OK, be friends now,’ it doesn’t work.”

Can a space have it all? Heatherwick Studio’s Little Island, the three-year-old Hudson River park off Manhattan, aimed to get the balance right by combining sizable public environments (including a 687-seat amphitheater) with playful elements (like a boulder scramble, spinning discs and chimes) that can be enjoyed alone or with companions or strangers.

“Whimsy” was key to this design, Hubbard said, together with the principle of togetherness. “We wanted to inject these different modes, together with spaces for meditation and jogging,” he said.

In the studio’s social impact study, he added, visitors most commonly reported feeling “relaxed” and “happy,” with “peaceful,” “calm” and “comforted” close adjectival contenders. Perhaps most indicative of Little Island’s mass appeal, 94% of the survey’s respondents, whether lone joggers or sociable concertgoers, indicated that they felt the park was “for people like them”; 92% said they “felt comfortable” there.

Solitude-first design is not designing for loneliness; it is creating opportunities for the isolated individual to be out in the world, alongside groups of people, without feeling excluded. It is that “variety” of opportunity that makes a space feel good to all, said Katy Ghahremani, a partner at Make Architects.

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