Colours and Biophilic Design
We have special relationships with some colours. Around the world, wherever you ask, people are more likely to tell you that the colour blue is their favourite colour than any other shade. Coincidentally, or...
Light, Sound and Movement
Flooding a space with natural light (minimizing glare with blinds as needed during certain times of the day, as needed) is biophilic design at its finest; it elevates our mood as well as our...
In conclusion – Biophilic Design in situ
Not surprisingly, research has shown that it’s best for our brains and our bodies if we layer multiple biophilic experiences together, so we’re hearing nature and seeing natural materials, and feeling the tickle of...
How to Design your Garden
There’s all sorts of science that can be applied to create a great garden—from studies of what sorts of fertilizer are best for dahlias when to how many hours of daylight petunias actually need...
The Science of Plazas, for Patios
What have neuroscientists learned about plaza design that you can apply in your patio: Design for what you actually want to happen on that patio.If you enjoy barbequing, not compromise on space for the...
Having a Positive, Productive Conversation
There are ways that design can make it more likely that you’ll have a constructive, mutually-beneficial conversation with someone else—whether you’re trying to negotiate world peace or help your teenager understand that they do...
Open the windows!
It’s open window time, pretty much worldwide! As long as you live in a place with clean air, there’s no time like the present to let some fresh air in. Lots of people like...
ADHD at work
Abrams studied people with ADHD during the pandemic and reports that “Working from home has also presented challenges for adults with ADHD, including dealing with the loss of boundaries—such as a dedicated workspace or...
Health and Neighbourhood Walkability
Howell and Booth tie neighborhood walkability and the presence of outdoor amenities to better health and fewer cases of diabetes among residents. They share that “researchers and policymakers alike have been searching for effective...
Choosing Others, Or Not
Uziel and Tomer Schmidt-Barad probed how having control and choosing to be alone or with others influence wellbeing. They share that “Stable social relationships are conducive to well-being. . . . The present investigation...
Looking at the Desert
Yin, Bratman, Browning, Spengler, and Olvera-Alvarez evaluated how seeing the desert scenes through a window affects stress levels. The Yin-lead team reports that they studied “the effect of a virtual reality (VR) exposure to...
Conspicuous Consumption and Social Jet Lag
Yin and Huang report that “People’s schedules are jointly determined by their biological clock and social clock. However, their social clock often deviates from the biological clock (e.g., having to get up earlier than...
Decision making “speed”
The speed at which we feel we’re moving (in a car or train, for example) influences decisions made. Shani-Feinstein, Kyung, and Goldenberg share that “With recent technological innovations, people increasingly experience speed during decision...
How to Feel Less Crowded While Waiting
Reyt and colleagues report that “Crowded waiting areas are volatile environments, where seemingly ordinary people often get frustrated and mistreat frontline staff…. we suggest an intervention that can ‘massage’ outsiders’ perceptions of crowding and...
Keep those blinds open!
Satish, Joseph, and Nanavati, recapping the benefits of natural light, report that “Exposure to daylight, in particular, plays an outsized role in our overall well-being and mental health. Like almost all animals, humans have...
Dangers of High Temperature Walks
Asano and colleagues report that “In the experiments [conducted], a total of 96 participants took a mathematical addition test in an air-conditioned room before and after walking in an actual outdoor environment. Results of...
Odd Spaces can make Great Spaces!
If when you read “odd places” in the title of this article and thought, “at last, what I should do with that weird space under the stairs OR that 2 foot by 3 foot...
How to fix an Odd-space?
If your odd space is wrong-sized there are things you can do to alter how big or small it feels that don’t involve paint. A more brightly lit space seems larger than a less...
Nook spaces and visual complexity…
Your odd space may have spent part of its life as a nook and time as a nook can have a serious and powerfully negative effect on your future efforts to keep random stuff...
Scents and Sounds in your Odd Space
You’ll need to breathe when you’re in your odd space and in the oddest of the odd spaces, that can be a challenge. The best of the odd spaces have windows in them or...
Places for Dogs, Cats, and Fish
Our pets, at the very least, seem like our very good friends, and we can make sure that they enjoy living in our homes as much as we enjoy having them share it with...
Merging Households
As the weather gets warmer, people move, and often people who are romantically linked decide to take the plunge and move in together. People who with tight enough bonds to decide to move in...
Gender and place experience
Men and women can experience spaces in slightly different ways from time to time: Women have a better sense of touch than men, in technical terms, they are more “tactically sensitive” than men. This...
Burnout – What You Can Do in Your Home Office
“Burnout” may be the word of the moment. Many of us seem to be feeling some sort of malaise, and “burnout” seems like an appropriate label for our mental (and sometimes physical) exhaustion, and...
The Power of the Placebo
When I read “Write It in Garmond” by R.E. Hawley in February (at https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/01/magazine/garamond.html), I couldn’t help but think about the power of design placebos. Hawley writes “a few months ago, while I was...
Feeling crowded makes us angry..
Next time you’re feeling crowded or putting together some sort of event, etc., where people might feel crowded, apply these research findings from Reyt and colleagues: “Crowded waiting areas are volatile environments, where seemingly...
Personality and musical taste
Greenberg and teammates report that they “built on theory and research in personality, cultural, and music psychology to map the terrain of preferences for Western music using data from 356,649 people across six continents....
What does being “Creative” mean to you?
Having an argument about whether something is creative or not? Culture may influence your answers. Kharkhurin and colleagues found that “The concept of creativity varies by culture. . . . Creative daring . ....
Gender preferences for hotel robots…
Turns out the sex of a robot makes a difference! While we might look at stereotyping issues, this research points out that preference is still biased to the female in this service industry. Read...
Weather affects our opinion!
Reviews may not be as objective as they seem. Brandes and Dover researched how weather conditions influence user reviews; they report that their study “uses a unique dataset that combines 12 years of data on...
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