Tension and Tastes
Zushi’s team shares that “Prior research indicate that emotional states can alter taste perception, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. . . . The first experiment investigated how anxiety affects taste perception when individuals...
The Value of Biophilic Design
The neuroscience research makes it very, very clear that being in a biophilicly designed space elevates our wellbeing. Need proof of the value of indoor biophilicly designed spaces? Here’s a representative sample of research...
Treehouses!
What could be more biophilic than a treehouse? In October, Tow Vanderbilt reported on the treehouses designed by Takeshi Kobayashi (“A Treehouse Builder Who Creates Impermanence: Japan’s Takashi Kobayashi Has Found Freedom in the...
Perception and visual clues – food
Lopez, Choi, Dellawar, Cullen, Contreras, Rosenfeld, and Tomiyama’s report that “Satiation can play a role in regulating eating behavior, but research suggests visual cues may be just as important. In a seminal study by...
Beaches are best!
Hooyberg and colleagues, using virtual reality, determined that “beaches caused lower breathing rates than urban environments and lower SCR [skin conductance responses] than green environments. . . . the heart rate, HF-HRV [high-frequency heart...
Human Art beats Robot Art
Di Dio and associates report that participants in their study “were asked to give beauty (BJ) and liking (LJ) judgments. . . . Aesthetic judgments were made in a blind-baseline condition, devoid of authorship...
Trees are good for Mental Health and Performance – the 3-30-300 Rule
Konijnendijk reports that “Having trees and other vegetation in sight from one’s home, place of work, or school has important mental health and performance benefits. . . . With public green spaces in proximity...
Nature and Patience
Xu and Ding report that “exposure to nature will lead consumers to be more patient in their waiting decisions. . . . marketers can reduce customer churn during peak or out-of-stock periods by decorating...
Biophilia in Space
Winn and colleagues report that “Natural materials, biomorphic forms, and the incorporation of plants and green elements are all strategies to implement biophilic design. Biophilic design can improve the cognitive and physiological health of...
Working from home and Cars…
Sepanta, O’Brien, and Arpan collected data from people “who started teleworking and moved at least 20 kilometres away from their original homes within two years of the beginning of COVID-19. . . . The...
Trees vs Social Media and Impact on Stress
Bailey, Anderson, and Cox “explore[d] the mechanisms of active and passive leisure influence through real-time tracking of mental states while incurring a standard ‘dose’ of social media and walking. Results indicate that social media...
Awe
Design can make it more likely people will feel awed in multiple ways, for example via exquisite workmanship or material use. Pan and Jiang studied “global self-continuity (GSC), a sense of connectedness among past,...
Autumn Fall is upon us and Winter will be here soon—how should you be preparing? Step 1 – Deal With Your Plants!
We’re spoiled at the end of the Summer. We’ve had all sorts of access to all sorts of green leafy plants, at our homes or in nearby parks or other spaces for months (well,...
Windows onto the World!
When going outside can seem like a burden, looking at it from inside seems like a better and better option. Take a minute now, while fixes are relatively easy and pleasant, to fine tune...
Add some gentle Movement in your Home….
Winter and time spent inside can be both stressful and boring. Some gentle movement in the spaces where you live will change all that. Here, we are talking about curtains that sway slightly and...
Managing the Temperature without touching the Thermostat!
Our brains and bodies work and feel best in spaces where the temperature is 72 degrees Fahrenheit and relative humidity levels are 40% to 70%. Ideal conditions are not always achievable ones. There are...
The First Language we Speak…. and Design
The first language we speak can influence how we experience spaces and the objects in them for the rest of our lives. Our earliest language influences what we pay attention to (because we need...
Don’t forget Visual Metaphors too….
Verbal metaphors seem to be linked in a fundamental way to how we physically experience the world that surrounds us, how we reason through the information in it. Some examples: The same centre in...
Setting the Barbie Scene
The sets of the Barbie movie did not fall out of the sky, they were carefully crafted by a dedicated team of professionals. Kyle Buchanan (2023, “How Those ‘Barbie’ Dreamhouses Came to Life: ‘We...
The “Best” Gardens
Margaret Roach (2023, “More Plants, More Life, More Pleasure: What Sets the Best Gardens Apart,” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/realestate/gardening-landscaping-ecological.html ) has spent a lot of quality time figuring out what sets the best...
Biophilic Learning Space Design – Great for Students, Teachers, and the Planet They Live On
When biophilic design principles are applied at places where people are learning and teaching, good things happen—moods and cognitive performance improve (for students and teachers!)—which is always a plus, whether trigonometry or Latin grammar...
Designing Schools
There are some aspects of great learning spaces that we can’t tie to our early history as a species, at least not well. They include: Effective screening to eliminate audio and visual distractions. Lots...
Quick Recap – Places to Focus
People learning need to be focusing on what they’re doing. Design supports focus when it: Uses colours that are not very saturated and are relatively light—a sage green or smokey blue with lots of...
Optimising Mental Energy Levels via Design
We do mentally easier tasks in spaces that are relatively energising places to be and those that require us to be more thoughtful, that are more challenging, in spaces where the design vibe is...
Spaces to mentally refresh!
When your brain has grown tired learning, remembering, etc., design can encourage a quick mental refresh when: You can see through a nearby window to nature outside, particularly if quietly flowing, “friendly” looking water...
Using Spaces to Remember…
Human minds really are fascinating and the way they work means that using spaces in particular ways can help us remember things. When we’re working or just musing, we offload thoughts to the world...
Creating places to mentally refresh?
When your brain has grown tired learning, remembering, etc., design can encourage a quick mental refresh when: You can see through a nearby window to nature outside, particularly if quietly flowing, “friendly” looking water...
Nature makes us more sociable!
Arbuthnott learned via a literature review that “Nature exposure increases prosocial behavior, decreases antisocial behavior, and increases ratings of social connection and satisfaction. Prosocial and antisocial behavior effects are observed with brief nature exposure,...
Why is gardening good for you?
Lehberger and Sparke’s work confirms that gardening is good for our mental health. They “replicated a study conducted in 2020 in Germany, which focused on comparing garden owners and non-garden owners. Almost exactly one...
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