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...
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...
Eating in darkness…
Veronique Greenwood’s article (“Some Restaurants Around the World Offer Dining With a Difference – Guests Eat in Complete Darkness. How Does This Change the Way We Taste?” 2023, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230411-what-dining-in-the-dark-does-to-your-tastebuds ) really gets you thinking...
Sunlight
Vermeer has been the darling of the art world, and loads of people outside that hallowed circle, for years, and in “Why We Want to Live (and Work) in That Vermeer Light” Emily Barger...
Benefits of Being in a City
Movies and television shows and books and magazine articles (every sort of media, it seems) makes city living seem oh so exciting and in many ways quite irresistible. Country living is presented as fine,...
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...
Hygge please
The Scandinavians have been doing it for aeons – they hygge (different languages use different terms but “hygge” is the one that English speakers are most familiar with). Hygge makes a space cosy and...
Artists’ Studios
The design of artists’ studios is currently getting a lot of attention. For example, Clare Dowdy of bbc.com (“Behind the Scenes: 10 Revealing Images of Artists’ Studios,” https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220914-behind-the-scenes-10-artists-studios-through-the-centuries ) probes studios depicted in James...
Way, Way too Hot…
Stress of any sort is bad for our physical and mental health. That’s why The Space Doctors often cover topics such as aligning environments with the task at hand and personality and culture, for...
Two Circadian Lighting Studies
Two recent studies probed how circadian lighting influences the experiences of older individuals Grant and colleagues investigated falls in care homes by elderly (mean age 81 +/- 12 years old) residents: some test locations...
Designing for Bonding
Design can influence the bonds we form with other people, just as it can affect how attached we feel to a space. We’ll form more positive and lasting attachments to other people in certain...
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...
Reduce stress – exercise outdoors!
Das and Gailey studied the implications of exercising in green spaces during the pandemic. They report that “Previous cross-sectional literature reports protective effects of outdoor exposure on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. We...
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...
Circadian lighting and sleep
Benedetti and colleagues found that circadian lighting in offices can improve how well people sleep at night. They “tested the effects of optimized dynamic daylight and electric lighting on circadian phase of melatonin, cortisol...
Art!
Almost all of us have art of some sort in our homes, but that art can range from a Picasso to a first finger painting by a grandchild. Art can be most useful in...
Designing for People with ADHD
If you’re trying to create a space where someone with ADHD will feel comfortable: Make sure that workspaces, and home offices, for example, are as distraction-free as possible. That means, only work-related items on...
What to Take on a Trip Anywhere
It’s nice to feel at home even when you aren’t-but unless your luggage is much, much larger than the suitcase I travel with, you can’t take much of your home with you when you...
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...
Keep lights low at night…
The Mason team reports that their “laboratory study shows that, in healthy adults, one night of moderate (100 lx) light exposure during sleep increases nighttime heart rate, decreases heart rate variability (higher sympathovagal balance),...
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,...
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...
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...
Less trees, hotter towns
Rouhollahi, Boland, and others conducted a study in Australia which found that “New housing subdivisions, smaller yards and a dependence on air conditioning have resulted in a 30 per cent decline in Australian residential...
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