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,...
Designing for Team Work
We meet differently in different sorts of spaces according to the research and lots of workplace designers and managers make sure that there are a range of areas available for people to get together. ...
Hearing the right “silent” messages
Space designers and managers are also really focused on you getting the right messages from what they provide. Some research studies have found that the nonverbal messages that you pull from your workplace have...
Other random but important stuff..
There’s another reason that things all start to look familiar from one space to another that designers and managers know about. When a space at a company looks like we expect it to look...
Healing Spaces
Healing spaces have probably been researched more extensively than any other sort of place (largely because it’s so easy to quantify the results of design actions taken there; after something changes more or less...
Learning Spaces
Learning is thinking so it should come as no surprise that most of the research that has been implemented in workplaces—regarding natural light, plants, visual clutter, views, etc.—has also been applied in classrooms. Research...
How to use Sound?
A few of us actively soundscape the worlds in which we live, but way too many of us just let sound happen to us, which is an opportunity missed. To calm yourself via your...
What we See and Touch
It probably won’t surprise you at all to know that touching soft things, such like the flannels that baby pyjamas are made of, is relaxing. If you want to banish the stress demons, make...
Clear that Clutter once and for all!
Visual clutter, known in the psych trade as visual complexity, is a sure-fire way to work your internal stress meter up to dangerous levels.If getting rid of clutter was straightforward, however, you would already...
How to REALLY relax in a Space?
To really relax in a space, people need to feel in control of it, that no one can intrude visually or acoustically without their permission—in other words, no one can see or hear them...
Theatre for 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...
Curvy Lines and Balloons
Curvy Space The new American Museum of Natural History takes the use of curving lines to an extreme. How do you think it would feel to be in this space? Images of the museum: ...
Evolution and Biophilic Design
Humans are a young species and still working with the same sorts of mental apparatus and ways of processing incoming information from our physical world that we had in our first few generations as...
Green Plants and Biophilic Design
Plants are important in any biophilically designed place, but biophilic designing involves much more than just distributing a few plants around. But since plants have come up, let’s start with them. Seeing green leafy...
De-clutter and then move those plants in…
If you live in a place with bad natural light, if you always forget to water (if this is you, please don’t ever bring home a kitty, puppy, or baby), or if things just...
Why we need Natural Materials
In biophilically designed spaces there are plenty of natural materials, slate and stone on floors, for example, and wood with visible grain on floors, walls, table tops, wherever it might be. Using wood with...
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...
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...
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...
Living and Loving
February is love month. We’ve been hearing this since we have been old enough to hear anything at all. The consumer products juggernaut that fills all our communications with advertisements, sometimes now flowing like...
What does your home say about you?
At least according to the experts in these sorts of things, it seems most likely that people will form their most useful opinions of others when they actually have some idea who those other...
Love the planet too
Designing a place where you and other space users will feel comfortable and accomplish whatever you’re motivated to get done has more than the obvious positive implications. If a place works for you and...
Generation What?
We regularly hear that the generation that someone’s in should drive the design of the space they’re in. Tom Standage’s review of The Generation Myth: Why When You’re Born Matters Less Than You Think...
“Awe”some is good!
The BBC has decided to talk about awe, something applied psychologists have been fascinated with for years. David Robson, on January 2, 2022 (“Awe: The ‘Little Earthquake’ That Could Free Your Mind,” https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220103-awe-the-little-earthquake-that-could-free-your-mind) talks...
Preferred Surface Colour Combos
Wondering how to paint your home? Don’t mix up the colours too much, group similar hues together. So for instance put hues of blue, or shades of green together. Serra, Gouaich, and Manav explored the...
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