Free Zones – in Praise of Basements!
Spaces where we can relax as we explore our own minds and work toward goals that are important to us are vital for our mental health. In “In Praise of Unfinished Basements,” Brady Brickner-Wood...
Barbie’s Dream House
Are you one of the millions of kids who played happily with a Barbie Dream House? If you are, you’ll relish reading Julie Lasky’s “A Six-Decade Tour of Barbie’s Dreamhouses” (2022, The New York...
Managing Sightlines
Most of us, happily, have well-functioning eyes that make it easy for us to look around us, but what are the best sightlines for us through a space? Having a sightline view of at...
Developers are swapping to Wood
Regularly, the Space Doctors discuss the psychological benefits of being able to see at least some wood grain. A recent article indicates that wood is currently finding its ways into lots of design solutions...
Robert Downey Junior’s home
Here in The Space Doctors’ newsletter we often talk about how seeing curves (in 2-dimensions in patterns in wallpapers and upholstery and 3-dimensions in the gently rolled arms of a sofa or walls of...
Turf Houses – Biophilic Design on Steroids!
Goodness, I LOVE these! The BBC brings worldwide attention to the turf homes that have gotten people from Iceland through the winter for many generations. Their use of materials, placement in situ, and really...
Designing for Aging Individuals
A team from the University of Stirling has developed a tool that can be used to create environments that support aging individuals and those with dementia; it is available at a weblink in the...
Shape, Sensation Links
Juravle, Olari, and Spence report that “Rounded shapes, which have been shown to enhance sweetness, were compared to the perfectly symmetrical Platonic solids. . . . participants were presented with a rotating three-dimensional geometric...
Re-nesting – The Long Read
Even if as you read this it isn’t officially autumn yet, you know that summer is past and we are beginning to settle into another winter slog toward Spring and a return to indoor-outdoor...
More on how colours influence how we think…
More on how colours influence how we think: Colours that are not too saturated but relatively light are relaxing for us to view while ones that are more saturated and darker are energizing to...
Building in familiarity
Humans usually like to be in places that seem familiar to them—but familiar does not mean exactly the same as spaces previously encountered, just consistent with those other places in important ways, areas where...
The Most Common and Important Errors Design Professionals Seem to Make
None of us are perfect, even people who design for a living. Unfortunately, design professionals regularly do the following things, which are oh so very un-good for the people using what they’ve designed: Signalling...
Ah the Trees of Paris…
Trees matter, a lot. Looking at them helps us revitalise our tired brains and they help keep temperatures, and stress levels in check just for starters. Writing about trees in Paris, Vivian Song (“Admiring...
Balcony Benefits…
Peters and Masoudinejad studied balconies’ roles in people’s lives. Their work indicates that balconies can be handy because they can be converted from one use to another, which is especially useful when, for whatever...
Window views
Buying or building a home or planning to move? If you answered yes, you’ll be intrigued by Chamilothori and teammates’ findings about how the openings (windows) in a building’s façade influence in-structure experiences. Via...
Flying high!
It may seem that planes, trains, automobiles, buses, and other vehicles that move you from place to place (and some that you’ve only seen on a screen somewhere, such as spacecraft), are designed entirely...
Plants, Biophilic Design and Technology…
Plants and Biophilic Design You’re very apt to see potted plants, real or artificial, in any transit hub because research has shown that when plants are present in public spaces, people are friendlier, which...
Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Automobiles Our driving performance improves when we’re smelling lemon, so next time you’re buying an in-car air freshener, go lemon. If you can tune the colour of the lights used in your car at...
Ever wanted to take the Hotel decor home with you?
Hotels are, literally, our homes away from home. We spend time in them when we’re on vacation and having a good time, but also when we’re on business trips and trying like crazy to...
Waiting in Line….
Have you ever found yourself getting all agitated while waiting in a queue for tickets? Bouncing from one foot to the other while you’re waiting for the shop assistant to finish helping the people...
What do humans find beautiful?
Krpan and van Tilburg share that they “developed and empirically evaluated the Aesthetic Quality Model, which proposes that the link between [visual] complexity and beauty depends on another key visual property—randomness. According to the...
How to Design a Museum – The Long Read
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...
Library Life
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...
Worthy Waiting Areas – the Long Read
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...
How to Feel Safe/Secure at Home
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...
When to Keep Things the Same, When to Make a Change
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...
Home or Asset?
Grant and Handelman report that “Traditionally, the home is regarded as a place of singularization that is to be aligned with the homeowner’s unique identity. This traditional meaning has come to be confronted with...
Place matters, The Places you go….
Whether it’s at work, at school, in a hospital, or even in a shop, we find ourselves in environments that we haven’t designed ourselves. In the paragraphs that follow, we’ll explore why and how...
More sights, smells and feels at work
Over the issues we’ve published we’ve talked several times about home office design, for example here, and all the things that we’ve told you about colour, scents, etc., and your performance and wellbeing in...
Biophilic Design in Workplaces
All those plants you see around your workplace are not there by chance. Research consistently shows that being able to see a couple of plants (not more) as you work boost your cognitive performance,...
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