Inspiration Is Literally a Walk in the Park

A walk in a neighborhood park during the workday may provide more than a breath of fresh air. Research shows that taking in a green scene can act as a source of innovation, opening the mind to new ideas and potentially sparking creative breakthroughs.

For one thing, a diverse mix of visitors tend to head to these shared public spaces, often in search of unstructured leisure activities, from kids romping through playgrounds to adults relaxing on benches. This exposure to people beyond our typical professional and social circles can inspire new ways of thinking and solving problems, says Maria Roche, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School.

“Everyone goes to the park—no matter how much money you make, what age you are, what religion or political party, it doesn’t matter,” says Roche, who has gravitated to parks near places she has lived, from El Retiro in Madrid to Piedmont Park in Atlanta. “It’s a great equalizing space.”

In addition, the lack of structure can make green spaces fruitful spots for developing new ideas, especially for inventors, who might observe other people’s wants and needs and drum up ideas for new products. “Maybe [someone] watches a dad fold a stroller for the first time and realizes it’s not intuitive at all,” leading the person to develop a new design, Roche says.

Unplanned interactions can also trigger innovative ideas, says Roche in the working paper “Parks and Invention,” which was updated in June and cowritten with Luisa Gagliardi, assistant professor at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy.

In the paper, the researchers note that Antje Danielson and Robin Chase struck up an impromptu conversation about neighborhood transportation challenges while watching their children play in the park—leading the two to create the ride-sharing company Zipcar.

The findings may be especially relevant as hybrid and remote work schedules reduce time spent in traditional offices, making employees' neighborhoods and everyday surroundings more important sources of inspiration.

Proximity to parks affects creativity

Both Gagliardi and Roche have previously studied the impact of one’s environment on innovation and entrepreneurship. Roche, for example, has examined how office layouts and surrounding neighborhood amenities affect innovation, finding that physical proximity and opportunities for informal interaction can influence knowledge sharing and company performance.

To explore whether parks spur creativity, the researchers examined data about inventors living in major cities in the United Kingdom, including their home addresses, proximity to parks, and the number and types of patents they secured. Plus, the researchers studied the results of a survey that asked inventors where they got their inspiration.

Creating a dataset of nearly 80,000 inventions in major English cities over more than 40 years between 1977 and 2018, the researchers found:

• Distance to the nearest park didn’t influence the average number of inventions per inventor, which held steady at about 1.38 per year.

• On the other hand, proximity to parks did seem to influence the creativity of those inventions.

The researchers used a measure of invention known as the disruptiveness index, which essentially shows how the invention differs from the stock of existing technologies in the same space. They found:

• Inventors in the top 5% of the sample, who lived an average of a half-kilometer from a park, were 21% more disruptive with their inventions than those in the bottom 5%, who lived an average of nearly 8 kilometers away.

• Inventors living closer to parks were more likely to have their patents cited by other inventors, which shows how significant their inventions are.

“You can invent something that’s way out there, but nobody cares,” says Roche. “But if people are citing it, that gives you some indication of how useful and important an invention is.”

Inventing products geared toward park visitors

In addition, the researchers found that the inventors located closer to parks were creating products and services geared more toward children and young adults—groups that are likely to gather in parks but are often underserved by inventors, Roche says.

Among the inventions created by those living closer to parks: a patent for a remote-controlled car equipped with a camera that sends augmented reality images to a handheld screen; a breakthrough car seat that could be locked in and out of its base to carry a child out of the car; a new baby bottle design; and a new chocolate ice cream treat.

The researchers found further evidence of parks’ influence in the results of a survey showing that inventors who lived closer to parks were more likely to say their inventions came about during “leisure time.”

Essentially, Roche says, the results show that parks appear to function as “awareness infrastructure,” increasing inventors’ exposure to diverse users and everyday problems that might otherwise fall outside their field of view.

How companies can encourage innovation

Since the findings suggest that innovation is influenced not only by where people work, but also by what they observe in their everyday environments, Roche says business leaders can take these steps to boost creative thinking:

Consider environmental access in talent and location strategies

Firms may want to consider residential amenities like access to parks when providing location support or housing benefits to job candidates, especially for workers engaged in exploratory or early-stage innovation. Companies could also consider locating in neighborhoods that already have easy access to parks, especially when choosing where to locate R&D facilities or to support distributed teams, since it appears social and green infrastructure may be as stimulating as other factors, like universities and industry clusters.

Encourage getting fresh air for inspiration

Too often, people push themselves at their desks, thinking if they just work harder, they’ll come up with new ideas—but they disregard the value of going outside for an hour or two to get their creative juices flowing, says Roche.

Consider adding green gathering spaces near offices

Large companies such as Google, Apple, and Walmart have increasingly built giant corporate campuses, complete with their own parks. While the study focuses on residential proximity to parks, Roche says such spaces, especially if they’re open to the public, can also support employee well-being and create opportunities for informal interaction.

Take tech breaks

Online technologies such as artificial intelligence are powerful tools for exploration, but they also have the tendency to converge on the same ideas, rather than introduce new ones. “That’s because they are trained on what already exists,” says Roche. “Going out and seeing the problems faced by real people can show you new demand for products that haven’t existed before, which can give you an advantage.”

Image created by Ariana Cohen-Halberstam with photo from Unsplash/Jakub Żerdzicki.