Loneliness and the Built Environment

Abstract

Architecture can be defined as the environment mediating the two human poles of loneliness and the desire to belong. It is this reading of architecture that motivated the organisation of a seminar on loneliness and the built environment at the Tampere University Faculty of Built Environment in December 2019. The seminar addressed the phenomenon from a multidisciplinary perspective. The invited keynote speakers represented the fields of philosophy and psychology, public health, and architecture. The three seminar lectures became the articles included in the present publication. In addition to these, two extra articles offer further perspectives on the topic from symmetrical – physical and virtual – viewpoints. The full set of texts offers an equidistant and unprejudiced outlook on the question of loneliness with the built environment as the common ground.