Entertaining in a Small Space
Whether you’ll be able to entertain any but the very closest of friends in your tiny space will depend a lot on the space. If you can set up a seating area to share,...
Minimalistic Living
There’s a lot of push today for living in a minimalist way. Aaargh! Using resources thoughtfully is always a good idea, for many a reason, from saving the earth, to conserving your bank balance,...
Eating in darkness…
Veronique Greenwood’s article (“Some Restaurants Around the World Offer Dining With a Difference – Guests Eat in Complete Darkness. How Does This Change the Way We Taste?” 2023, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230411-what-dining-in-the-dark-does-to-your-tastebuds ) really gets you thinking...
Sunlight
Vermeer has been the darling of the art world, and loads of people outside that hallowed circle, for years, and in “Why We Want to Live (and Work) in That Vermeer Light” Emily Barger...
Plants Prevail
As they do most Springs when plants revive outside, plants inside are a hot topic. In “Eight Ways Indoor Plants Can Improve Your Home” (2023, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230324-eight-ways-indoor-plants-can-improve-your-home) Dominic Lutyens shares that worldwide “a trend for...
Storage is Your Friend
Many of us have lots of stuff. We live in a society that gives us lots of options of things we might buy, and then encourages us to make many purchases, even ones we...
Managing your at-work Energy Levels…
A Zhang-lead team found “a time allocation effect, such that for a given period of the workday (i.e., the morning or the afternoon), the greater the proportion of time a knowledge worker spent in...
We like what we know
Darda and colleagues share that they “we explored Northern American and Indian participants’ aesthetic judgments and preferences for abstract and representational artworks. . . . no evidence was found for an ingroup bias ....
Do our preferences change?
Aleem and Grzywacz looked at our responses to aesthetics over time and report that “A handful of studies that have measured aesthetic preferences at multiple moments show that preferences may change in as little...
Birdsong and Wellbeing
Hammoud and colleagues report that they “used the Urban Mind smartphone application to examine the impact of seeing or hearing birds on self-reported mental wellbeing in real-life contexts. . . . Everyday encounters with...
Language and Judgements
Rizzo and team’s work indicates how important word choice is for conclusions drawn; they found that “sensory language (e.g., words like ‘crumble’ and ‘juicy’ that engage the senses) shapes consumer responses to influencer-sponsored content....
Assessing Art
Kuhnapfel and colleagues report that “in a gallery-like setting . . . we tracked movements of participants that engaged an abstract artwork. . . . moving more/more dynamically related to more reported insight. ....
Create Refreshing Views – Garden Design 101!
We’re not apt to think how our gardens can work for us, the way our home offices and kitchens do. Your garden can refresh your mind and cut your stress levels just as it...
Biophilically Designed Gardens
The gardens that have the most positive effects on our minds and our bodies actively apply important principles of biophilic design. We have discussed biophilic design in detail in here (and search in our...
What to hear in your Garden?
Listening to just the right sorts of nature sounds can be as cognitively refreshing and good at reducing our stress levels as seeing nature, in real life or in photos or videos, all of...
Smelling the right Smells outdoors
Gardens can be planned so that the scents that they generate serve well those that smell them. From a psychological perspective the best scents for your garden to produce (also, the best garden-based scents...
Building in Good Neighbours!
We can build and use our homes in ways that increase our positive bonds with the people who live nearby. Sit on your front porch or steps if you have them from time to...
How to design so people… behave…!
Want people to do something particular in a space? Sit quietly and read? Enjoy a movie with others without interjecting comments for all to hear? Eat using the table manners their grandmother would be...
Movie Houses…
Oscars have just been distributed, so movies won’t be completely dominating the news again for a few more months yet, but the homes we see and cherish after we catch sight of them in...
Recycling for the Planet and our Minds
In “The Most Ingenious Recycled Homes,” Clare Dowdy (2023, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230302-the-most-ingenious-recycled-homes) makes the point that recycling is not only good for the planet but can also give us a psychological boost because it makes us...
Making the Metaverse
Programmers out there are actually creating the metaverse, but clearly in no time at all it is going to have as big an effect on how we think and behave as the physical world...
More Benefits of Feeling Awed
We can be awed by design in a variety of ways, for example, via exquisite workmanship or use of unique or special materials. Prade and Saraglou share that “Given that awe experiences promote collective...
Building connections to Artwork
Carbon reports that “When we attend sculptures in museums, they might fascinate us due to the mastery of the material, the inherent dynamics of body language or due to contrapposto or the sheer size...
Health Implications: Light at Night
New research confirms that experiencing higher levels of light at night may not be healthy for people, particularly pregnant ones. A study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Maternal Fetal Medicinereports...
Biophilic Facades
Berto, Barbiero, and Salingaros share that “Built environments that integrate representations of the natural world into façades and interiors benefit occupant psycho-physiological well-being and behavior. However, the biophilic quality of buildings does not depend...
Virtual Reality Forest Bathing
Frigione and colleagues report that their “study investigates the effects of natural and indoor virtual environments (VREs) on psychophysiological and cognitive responses. . . . participants were exposed to two VREs (i.e., a forest...
Locate Schools Near Greenspaces for Best Effects
Rahal, Wells, and Evan “examined the [relationship between] school greenspace . . . and a standard literacy enrichment program . . . over a one-year period for a large sample of ethnic minority (95%)...
Trees make for Safer Streets
Zhu, Sze, and Newnam report that a “street tree is considered a traffic calming measure.” Findings from the Zhu, Sze, and Newnam study “indicate that road width, bus stop, tram station, on-street parking, and...
Confirming the Benefits of living near Green Spaces and Water
Vegaraju and Amiri found that “Living closer to outdoor spaces and water sources may reduce older people’s risk of having serious psychological distress, which can lead to mild cognitive impairment and dementia. . ....
Asleep at your Desk?
Goel and colleagues report that “Data from 225 office workers were collected for perceived fatigue, perceived sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index [PSQI]), physiological stress response (standard deviation of heart rate variability [HRV]), and...
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