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...
Curvaceous Houses
A November article in The New York Times talks about the many curving design elements in environments created by Polish Brazilian designer Jorge Zalszupin (Michael Snyder, 2023, “Wacky, Curvaceous Houses in Brazil That Feel...
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...
Sharing Spaces – The Long Read
The season of mingling is upon us! It seems that most of us pack in the majority of time we spend socializing with others during the last few months of the year. People have...
Sharing spaces – Extraverts and Introverts
Mingling means sharing spaces, etc., and the personalities of the people doing that sharing and the design of the space being shared can have a major effect on how well it all goes. People...
Space Sharing – Gender difference?
Men and women can experience spaces in different ways for physiological reasons that seem quite distinct from their sexual preferences. Because female fingers tend to be smaller than male ones (women are often shorter...
Space Sharing…Designers do it Differently!
Invited to a party at the home of someone with design training and feeling all is not quite right? Designing training causes us to find different aspects of interiors familiar—and we like what’s familiar....
Nostalgia is good for your soul as well asyour mental performance
A place where you feel nostalgic can be good for your mental performance as well as your soul. Sensory design can make nostalgic experiences more or less likely. Scents can lead to nostalgic thinking...
We take more Chances when we’re warm it seems…
Lundberg, Craig, and Peloza share that “Across four studies, we find evidence for a positive relationship between temperature and risk-taking, using multiple operationalizations of temperature and measurements of risk. . . . In particular,...
Designing for Gender doesn’t always work…
Dai and colleagues found that “It is common that marketers design and position pretty products more to female consumers than to male consumers, suggesting they generally believe that females have a stronger preference than...
Your Front Door Colour affects your House sale!
Zillow shares information on front door colours and home sales. During their study actual and potential home buyers answered survey questions: “Homes with a front door painted slate blue — a chalky light blue-gray...
Learning Tricks from Set Design!
People creating movie, TV, and stage sets often need to be really ingenious. The things they lavish the most attention to likely have powerful effects on our experience of space. As Alexis Soloski (2023,...
Miniature Houses – Telling Key Stories…
Miniatures, the sorts of items that would be at home in the most intricate doll houses, are finding their ways into many retailers in North America—which is intriguing—are these tiny things helping us wax...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Too much tech in hotel rooms, bring on the Biophilia!
There is a natural limit to everything, including the amount of automation in our lives, and as Amy Tara Koch reports in “Encountering the Infuriating, Overwhelming and Unwanted Smart Tech in My Hotel Room”...
Age of the Modern Farmhouse
Ronda Kaysen shares lots of details about modern farmhouse residential design, labelling it the replacement for McMansions in the psyches of many American residents. As Kaysen shares (“The Modern Farmhouse is Today’s McMansion. And...
Barbie Pink!
With the global PR tsunami pushing people into theatres to see the new Barbie movie, it seems that the colour pink is everywhere. Looking at relatively unsaturated, light shades of pink is definitely relaxing...
Keeping up with the Jones – Home decor and market forces!
Grant and Handelman determined that “while consumers readily turn to the home décor marketplace for objects that help them reflect their personal identity, lifestyle media have clearly influenced an emergent cultural understanding of the...
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