Media Contacts:
Steven Thomson (212) 924-7000 x 12 | sthomson@vanalen.org
Peter Zarko-Flynn, +44 (0) 7525 053795 | p.zarko-flynn@imperial.ac.uk
Mathilde Campergue (917) 881-9003 | mathilde@hellothirdeye.com
NEW YORK, January 13, 2015— Van Alen Institute today announced the launch of Ecologies of Addiction, an interdisciplinary research initiative into the complex relationship between addictive behaviors and the physical environment of the city. Van Alen is collaborating on the first phase with Imperial College London’s Sustainable Society Network (SSN+), and has selected a research team based at King’s College London to investigate how a person’s vulnerability to addiction may be impacted by his or her environment. The public is invited to join the project team and advisors for a presentation and discussion of the project at Van Alen Institute on January 29, 2015, 7pm. Register here.
Addictions of every kind present profound social and economic challenges to cities around the world, and have a tremendous impact on community sustainability and resiliency:
- Britain has been called the “addiction capital of Europe,” with problem use of drugs and alcohol costing £36 billion every year.
- Compulsive shopping has been called a crisis in the UK, possibly affecting as many as one in five women.
- Some 10 percent of online users report that addiction to the Internet—known as “electronic heroin”—is undermining their social relationships and their effectiveness at work.
- Over the last decade, opiate and crack cocaine addiction has plummeted in London, yet other UK regions have seen a worrying increase.
The causes for these addictions, both chemical and behavioral, are profoundly complex, but a growing body of research connects the health of city-dwellers with the characteristics of their neighborhoods. With this investigation, Van Alen’s goal is to catalyze the integration of urban data, public health, design, and the sciences to inform next-generation thinking about addictive behaviors and the settings in which they occur.
“Addictions present a huge challenge, and we think that a better understanding of how they work spatially can shed light on many other aspects of well-being,” explained Van Alen’s Executive Director David van der Leer. “This is also Van Alen’s first major international project, and we are very pleased to be working with stellar teams from SSN+, Imperial, and King’s College.”
“This project illustrates the potential of the Sustainable Society Network+ to create international links between institutions,” said Catherine Mulligan, Principal Investigator for SSN+. “The collaboration between Van Alen and the Network+ has provided the opportunity for the USA and UK to learn and engage with one another in an area of critical importance for society.”
This September, Van Alen and SSN+ issued an open call for proposals investigating relationships between addictions and city form. The winning team from King’s College London is led by neuroscientist Dr. Andrea Mechelli, landscape architect Johanna Gibbons, and artist Michael Smythe, and is developing an app-based investigation of the impact of the urban environment on addictive behaviors, and how that impact interacts with a person’s individual characteristics.
“In the current neuroscientific and psychological understanding of addictions, impulsivity is a key risk factor,” said Dr. Mechelli, the research team leader and a neuroscientist specializing in early intervention in and treatment of psychosis. “Our project will examine how different aspects of the urban environment affect impulsivity, and how this varies with a person’s individual characteristics. This will lay the groundwork for investigations into specific addictive behaviors in later phases of the project.”
An advisory group with experts from the fields of neuroscience, public health, urban planning, substance-abuse treatment, and technology will guide the team. The team’s findings will be presented in May 2015 at a series of public events in London, and in June 2015 in New York City. Their work will provide a basis for Van Alen to continue investigating these complex relationships with academic, civic, and private sector partners in the United States and beyond.
Ecologies of Addiction is an integral part of Van Alen Institute’s Elsewhere: Escape and the Urban Landscape, a multi-year initiative exploring how both the form and organization of the built environment influence our need for escape. Through competitions, public programs, and research, this unique multidisciplinary effort is bringing together innovators in design, public health, policy, and the sciences to change the way we understand cities.
TEAM:
RESEARCH TEAM Dr. Andrea Mechelli | Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience
King’s College London, London, UK Johanna Gibbons | J&L Gibbons Landscape Architecture Urban Design, London, UK
Michael Smythe | NOMAD, London, UK
PROJECT TEAM / VAN ALEN INSTITUTE David van der Leer | Executive Director Anne Guiney | Director of Research
PROJECT TEAM / SUSTAINABLE SOCIETIES NETWORK+ Catherine Mulligan | Principal Investigator, Imperial College London, London, UK Stephen Lorimer | Network Coordinator and Research Associate, Imperial College London, London, UK
ADVISORY COMMITTEE Dr. Tom Albright | Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA Dr. Andrea Barthwell | Medical Director, Two Dreams Chicago, Chicago, IL
Mark Hansen | Director, Brown Center for Media Innovation, Columbia University, New York, NY
Dr. Karen Lee | Ph.D. | NYC Department of Mental Health and Hygiene, New York, NY Sarah Williams | Director, Civic Data Design Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Robert Richardson | Van Alen Trustee; Senior Advisor, NYC Technology Development Corporation, New York, NY
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About Van Alen Institute
At Van Alen Institute, we believe design can transform cities, landscapes, and regions to improve people’s lives. We collaborate with communities, scholars, policymakers, and professionals on local and global initiatives that rigorously investigate the most pressing social, cultural, and ecological challenges of tomorrow. Building on more than a century of experience, we develop cross-disciplinary research, provocative public programs, and inventive design competitions.
Website: past.vanalen.org Facebook: /vanaleninstitute Twitter: @van_alen Instagram: @van_alen
About Sustainable Society Network+ (SSN+)
Sustainable Society Network+ is an initiative of the Research Councils UK’s Digital Economy theme, and aims to change the landscape of connections to create a vibrant network of researchers who take not just a Digital Economy approach back to their home disciplines, but a Sustainable Society approach as well. We are seeding a movement of researchers who approach research questions from an economic, social and environmental perspective, with a particular focus on creating links between current researchers and the next generation of researchers.
Website: www.sustainablesocietynetwork.net
LinkedIn: DE Sustainable Society Network+
Twitter: @SustanableSoci