It’s nice to feel at home even when you aren’t-but unless your luggage is much, much larger than the suitcase I travel with, you can’t take much of your home with you when you travel. There are some things that you can do to feel at home where you are, wherever that may be: Keep the same smells. The scents we smell are processed in such a primordial part of our brain that they have a direct route to our emotional core.  No sensory experience effects our emotional state as quickly as the odours we smell.  After our discussions of…

Museums store some of our species’ greatest work, as well as impressive achievements by Mother Earth—they are places where we go to prepare to think great thoughts, and, occasionally to do a little high-powered pondering. There’s been lots of research done on museum design because they’re public places to which scientists have pretty ready access—once they convince the management that their project is worthwhile. Just thinking about what gets put into museums is pretty mind boggling.  They are really homes for entire cultures.  As we’ve covered several times, we chose to display in our homes the things that we think…

Like museums, libraries seem to be the sort of spaces where we’ll either think great thoughts or gather the ideas required to do so.  You may have a library in your home or may visit one regularly, and some of the information used to design libraries outside your home may be useful for the design of ones in it.  Civic libraries are being asked to do much more now than they did in the past and many are becoming, for all intents and purposes, community centers, local maker spaces, and much more (so designing in flexibility for future uses, and…

There are times when it seems that most of our lives are being spent waiting for something (for example, an appointment) or someone.  Design can make waiting much more pleasant, and lots of research has gone into the details of how.  Many of these studies have been done in dentists’ waiting rooms, dentists know you hate visiting them and get stressed doing so.  Research done specifically in dentists offices have shown that we’re calmer, happier waiters, and much less anxious, when we smell oranges (the fruit) and see fish swimming in a tank. People do a range of things in…

When you’re in a restaurant, it’s likely that you have at least a passing interest in eating healthy.  Design can help you do just that. If you are designing a new space for an “eatery” then these tips will be very useful for you! Why not forward to a friend who has a hotel, cafe or restaurant, they’ll find some tips in here that will be enhance their offering! Space design can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to resist the luscious brownies that your neighbour brings by, but the environment inside your home can help you resist the call of…

 We’re more apt to feel safer, that where we live is more “neighbourly,” and actually be more secure when: Cooler colours predominate in the space we’re in. We’re sitting or sleeping so that we can easily see anyone entering the room we’re in (ideally with the door opening in a way that shields us from the view of anyone entering as they begin to open that door). This works even better when there’s something behind us, a wall, a tall plant, a column, or something similar that would prevent any real or imagined, living or more ephemeral, evil-doer from approaching…

When you’re asking yourself if you should make a change, you’re answering your own question.  When a space doesn’t seem comfortable anymore, it isn’t. A place can seem less comfortable for a variety of reasons, some grounded in how exactly the space is used (not enough bedrooms for all residents, no space large enough for a table for all family members to share, you have taken up painting and there’s no place to set up your easel, for instance), and others that are more conceptual (you’ve become more concerned about the environment and your home really isn’t very green, for…