BBC celebrates Value of Building with Nature
Here at The Space Doctors we spend a lot of time singing the praises of views of nature and indoor plants. In a new article on bbc.com, excepts from Carolo Ratti’s introduction to The...
Nature Sounds and Health
Zhu and teammates found that “Listening to natural sounds, both live and recorded, in either a natural or built environment is considered natural sound exposure (NSE). . . . Fifteen studies . . ....
Choosing a New Place… The LONG READ
Relocating, changing where you live can be a jarring experience. There are all sorts of practical things that you need to figure out when you move – like the fastest route to the market...
BBC’s Most Remarkable Homes
Dominic Lutyens has taken a look around our wide, wide world and identified the 8 homes he finds most remarkable, because of their design and earth friendly features (2024, BBC, “Eight of the World’s...
Consequences of Time in Nature
Joye and teammates report that they “tested the ‘nature-as-reward hypothesis’, which suggests that superior cognitive task performance following nature exposure reflects a general performance improvement, driven by the reward value of beautiful things. ....
Teenagers and Physical Spaces
Buttazzoni and Minaker studied teenager (age 9 to 17) and identified “several significant associations. Notably, spaces high in complexity (visual richness), imageability (distinctiveness), and enclosure (room-like quality) tended to support positive affect [mood]. Additionally,...
Harvesting useful Outdoor Scents
While you are planning your outdoor spaces, think about what they’ll smell like. You can harvest those smells through open windows and smell them directly when you are outdoors. Neuroscience indicates that the following...
Battling Burnout with Design
Spring can often seem to be the season for burnout, the winter has been long, and just before the plants really spring back to life, our existences can seem bleak—and we all work too...
What you’re missing (maybe?!)
Dominic Lutyens in an article for bbc.com (“Inside the Homes That ‘Whisper Rather Than Scream Luxury,’” 2024, https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20240208-inside-the-homes-that-whisper-rather-than-scream-luxury ) writes about the rise of quietly luxurious spaces. As he reports, “In his foreword to...
Lighting at home for Older Generation
Banerjee and associates determined that “better lighting at home was associated with increased physical activity at home. For every 0.1-log units increase in average home lighting, individuals took 5% more daily steps and had...
Attributes of Homes we’re Willing to Pay for
Lou, Wang, Yuan, and Lu used data from Hong Kong to measure assessed WTP (willingness to pay) for various design features in homes: “We first simulate the metrics of five housing attributes under different...
Colouring your best mood
Many of us are not in the best of all moods as we slog our way through the beginning of any year – whether we live in the Northern Hemisphere and it’s just too...
Smelling the right stuff, boots your mood!
When we’re spending more time inside our home can start to smell stuffy, particularly if we can’t open the windows because it seems hot or cold outside—and stuffiness is bad for our wellbeing, mood,...
What are your most dominant senses?
We tend to focus on what a space we’re developing looks like and that can be a big mistake. For most of us, happily we have multiple sensory systems operating simultaneously and we’re pulling...
Mentally Refreshing Experiences
Johansson and colleagues asked Swedish adults from urban and rural areas to “read scenarios concerning encounters with each of these four animals during recreational visits to a nearby natural setting. The scenarios varied in...
More of Nighttime Light
We may need to reevaluate how we manage light at night in our homes. Blume and teammates found that “Ambient light however does not only allow us to see, it also influences our sleep-wake...
Older people gardening and the benefits
Guo, Yanai, and Xu set our to evaluate “the associations between garden factors (i.e., garden visit frequency and perceived garden quality) and older adults’ [mean age 79] psychological well-being outcomes (i.e., positive well-being and...
Childhood Anxiety and Greenspace Access
De la Osa and team collected data from children 3 – 11 years old: “Exposure to greenspace has been associated with mental health benefits in children; however, the available evidence for such an association...
Feeling with your Fingertips – the Long Read
Humans have lots of skin, with lots of nerves embedded in it. All those nerves are churning away, second after second, sending millions of impulses to your brain – giving you all sorts of...
Feeling not with your Fingertips – from your feet to your butt!
We don’t just have nerve endings in our fingertips and tactile experiences from the soles of our feet as we walk, from our butts as we sit, etc., also influence our experiences in a...
Lighting and Feeling Tired
Zhou and Pan report that “participants were tested under different illuminance levels and correlated color temperatures (CCT) for three distinct reading durations. Reading efficiency during the task tests and objective measures of brain activity...
Designing New Year’s Resolutions – The Long Read
As one year ends and another begins we’re driven to think about the high and low points of the last 12 months and to plan for the next 12, and beyond. All of which...
Cold Weather Fixes…
Want to feel warmer? Make sure you’re surrounded by warm colours and nix the cooler ones. The difference in perceived temperatures can be as much as 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Similarly, when we see images...
The Science Behind Wild Swimming
Wild swimming has been having a moment, for the last few decades, and likely will get even more attention when people swim in the Seine during the 2024 Paris Olympics—although jumping into the Seine...
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...
Nature improves Cognition
Vella-Brodrick and Gilowska conducted a literature review “examining the effects of nature interventions on the cognitive functioning of young people aged 5 to 18 years. Examples of nature interventions include outdoor learning, green playgrounds,...
Daylight reduces burnout
A team lead by Ziabari found that “The research question was to identify the connection between daylight, nature-view windows, and hospital staff burnout during Covid-19. . . . Three questionnaires were used: demographic, physical...
Trees Reduces the Heat
Sahani and team determined that “Nature-based solutions (NBS) such as green (vegetation) and blue (waterbodies) infrastructure are being promoted as cost-effective and sustainable strategies for managing the heatwaves risks, but long-term monitoring evidence is...
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...
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...
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