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User-hostile architecture with healing powers?
Architects claim they have designed a house that "stimulates the immune system" and staves off death. Where does the architecture get its magical power? By being as user-unfriendly as possible, of course:
The house is off-limits to children, and adults are asked to sign a waiver when they enter. The main concern is the concrete floor, which rises and falls like the surface of a vast, bumpy chocolate chip cookie. ...
In addition to the floor, which threatens to send the un-sure-footed hurtling into the sunken kitchen at the center of the house, the design features walls painted, somewhat disorientingly, in about 40 colors; multiple levels meant to induce the sensation of being in two spaces at once; windows at varying heights; oddly angled light switches and outlets; and an open flow of traffic, unhindered by interior doors or their adjunct, privacy.
I know this sounds like The Onion, but it was really in the New York Times. For me the intriguing question is whether the architects actually believe their pitch.
Another term for those things that "stimulate the immune system" is "stress."
There is also the method of stimulating the immune system by spending a lot of time outdoors, in Nature. The surfaces are uneven. Colours and shades too numereous to count. As are textures and smells and sounds. The evidence of time and growth and change is always evident -- for those who look.
The architects are on to something. Presenting a mind with varied and changing perceptions does keep one awake, does stimulate awareness and encourage vitality. The approach they've taken though is the proverbial sledgehammer to a thumb tack.