This paper intends to question the extent to which brutalist architecture produces negative environments through their adverse psychological impact on those who inhabit them. Equally, it will explore how such environments can be overcome. The object these aims will centre around is J.G. Ballard’s novel High-Rise, a dystopian narrative that critiques the modernist tower block, by providing a hyperbolic account of the potential ramifications it can have on the human mind. This paper intends to question the extent to which brutalist architecture produces negative environments through their adverse psychological impact on those who inhabit them. Equally, it will explore how such environments can be overcome. The object these aims will centre around is J.G. Ballard’s novel High-Rise, a dystopian narrative that critiques the modernist tower block, by providing a hyperbolic account of the potential ramifications it can have on the human mind.The consideration of how negative environments can be overcome will draw on the positive elements of Deleuze’s Nietzsche – his concept of the eternal return and the Overman – and Debord’s psychogeography. These concepts are examined to explore the extent which they can be used as remedial to the negative implications of an environment.