Geddes turned to sociology after a brief attack of blindness ended his early career as a biologist. In 1892 he acquired the Outlook Tower near Edinburgh Castle where he established the world's first sociological laboratory. By the First World War, Geddes's reputation as a pioneer town planner was international. He believed that urban structures should provide for physical and spiritual human needs, with gardens, sun-courts and neighbourly street layouts. These ideas were to become widely accepted as desirable in twentieth-century town planning.