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...
More Walkable, Lower Healthcare Costs
New research confirms that walkability is good for us. Wali and colleagues examined “high resolution data for 476 participants in the Rails and Health study on health care costs, mode specific MVPA[ moderate-to-vigorous physical...
Things to note as you travel
Some things to note as you begin to travel far from home again: Climate varies dramatically based on distance from the equator and leads people to want to use spaces in different ways.For example,...
Where we grew up affects whether we get lost or not…
Ever wondered why some people you know always seem lost? Coutrot and colleagues report that “how the environment in which one grew up affects later cognitive abilities remains poorly understood. Here we used a...
How Music shapes our Accuracy
Santangelo and associates report that “music is frequently played while we are engaged in other activities that rely on decision-making (e.g., driving). . . . We analyzed response times and accuracy from more than...
It makes sense, so I see it better!
Rossel and teammates report that “Our study investigated the influence of expectations based on prior experience and contextual information on the perceived sharpness of objects and scenes… We manipulated the availability of relevant information...
Designing for All and Everyone
DeafSpace was developed at Gallaudet University years ago to spatially support people who are hard-of-hearing. As the article at the link below indicates, it is now being used to develop a major public space....
Windowless Dorms
We wrote before about the windowless dorm being built for students, and the negative impact it could have on them. Recent articles which report on the experiences of living in a windowless dormitory room...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
Let music and scents be the food of love!
In many a boudoir scene on the silver screen, not only do candles predominate, but before the person to be romanced arrives, some scent is sprayed in the air and background music begins to...
Starting Anew – Aargh! to Aahh!
People putting together plans for new homes pass through a set of predictable phases. The first is euphoria: “Wow, I’m going to have the opportunity to do something new, to create the sort of...
TIPI – Designing for your personality
Ever wondered how you align with your friends and family? One of the things that’s clearest about space design is that everyone feels better when their personality aligns with the place that they find...
Green Cities are Good for Kids
Binter and colleagues looked at how urban design affects child development. They share that they “investigated the association between early-life urban environment and cognitive and motor function in children. We used data from 5403...
Banking Happiness
Faraji-Rad and Lee determined that “Merely anticipating a future sad event motivates consumers to ‘accumulate happiness’ in order to enhance their ability to cope with the anticipated sadness later—a phenomenon that we call banking...
Living with Stress
Goldring and Bolger investigated how daily stressors influence lives and found that “Prior research shows that daily stressors lead to greater psychological distress. A separate body of research links daily stressors to physical symptoms...
The Space in the Place!
As a gift for Christmas, The Space Doctors have written another poem for you in the style of Dr Seuss! We hope you enjoy it! If you would like your very own higher resolution PDF...
How to Encourage Conversation at a Party
Science makes it clear that there are some hard and fast rules about spaces where people have great conversations—you can apply them throughout your home, creating multiple conversation zones—even if you don’t have any...
Scent and Heat!
At this time of year we can become particularly attuned to the smells in our homes and offices, regularly because they’re not very good. If you actively manage the scents in your home and...
Are you arguing with your designer?
If you are, don’t be surprised—the two of you bring very different mindsets to any design discussion. Designers have spent a lot of time thinking about design (no surprise there). Even if you’ve been...
Keep warm and feel safe
The warmer we are the safer we feel. Hornstein, Fanselow, and Eisenberger link feeling something warm feeling safe: “a physically warm stimulus was less readily associated with threat (compared to soft or neutral stimuli;...
Greenspace is better for childhood development
New research from Jarvis and colleagues has been published. They looked at how living near greenspace impacted childhood development. It turns out, that it does 🙂 How did they do it? They report that...
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