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...
Father child bonding and green spaces
Neighbourhood design and some parenting practices seem to be related. Mygind and colleagues state that “There were no observable associations between residential greenness [i.e., Normalized Difference in Vegetation Index] within a 1,600 m network radius...
Clothes and Thinking
Horton, Adam, and Galinsky share that “Enclothed cognition refers to the systematic influence that clothes can have on the wearer’s feelings, thoughts, and behaviors through their symbolic meaning. It has attracted considerable academic and...
What should your furniture be made of? – The Long Read
After our houses and our cars, our furniture may be our biggest investment. Sofas, chairs, tables . . . none of them come cheap and modern life seems to require multiple pieces for each...
What should the basic form of your furniture be?
Once you decide what materials your furniture should be made of, other questions come to the fore: What should that furniture look like at a very, very basic level? Regardless of our personality, culture,...
Specifically, what should your furniture, literally, feel like?
We tend not to think too much about what a design option feels like when we’re pondering choices available to us—but what we feel with our skin has a powerful effect on how we...
How should you arrange your furniture?
As with so many things, it all depends. How you arrange your furniture should depend on how you intend to use the space it’s in. Logic prevails. And try to invest in the bare...
Designing for Creativity
As the new year dawns, many of us decide to spend time at creative endeavours, and design can help with that! The findings that follow are place-independent; they hold, and can be applied, whether...
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...
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...
Screentime, Early Experiences, Later Consequences
A Heffler-lead team determined that “Greater early-life digital media exposures may be associated with atypical sensory processing. Further research is needed to understand why early media exposure is associated with specific sensory-related behaviors, including...
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 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...
Things we learned in 2023
In 2023, researchers have reported that: Symmetrical things seem more functional and reliable and asymetical ones more fun and exciting—useful information when you’re making choices. At-work sound volumes of about 50 dBA are best;...
To DIY, or not to DIY
In many parts of the world, at this time of year, people find themselves with time on their hands; hiking is definitely not the top of anyone’s list as sleet pours from the skies,...
Conversation Enhancers
As you move through the Winter months where you live, you may find conversations with those you’re “cooped up” with getting a little tense. Some science-based suggestions for smoothing your interactions with those you’re...
Plant trees and feel less pain!
Gungormus and colleagues link planting trees to experiencing less pain: “Sensory stimulation has shown the capacity to modulate pain mechanisms. . . . A single-group, pretest-posttest clinical trial was used. . . . healthy...
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...
There are more benefits of being active – beyond the Calories!
The research is very clear that being active, really using your muscles throughout the day, has all sorts of benefits beyond burning calories (although burning calories is indeed a good thing). Taking a walk,...
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...
Scenting and Branding…. yes this is a thing!
M. Brown, in a recent article in The New York Times reviews recent efforts by many to link their locations/products/services to specific scents in consumers’ minds (“When You Think About Your Credit Card, Does...
Nature and the Authentic you!
Yang, Sedikides, Wang, and Cai “formulated several hypotheses: (a) nature fosters authenticity, and it does so through at least four plausible mechanisms: self-esteem, basic needs satisfaction (autonomy, competence, relatedness), mindfulness, and positive affect; (b)...
Loneliness and time alone
Danvers and colleagues learned that “spending more than 75% of time alone was associated with much higher loneliness scores. . . . people who spend very much or very little of their time surrounded by others tend...
Turns out that our smell sends communication signals
A Loos-lead team reports that “Although chemical signaling is an essential mode of communication in most vertebrates, it has long been viewed as having negligible effects in humans. However, a growing body of evidence...
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...
Hipification of Plants
In “Human Resources, for Plants, Steven Kurutz lays out the army of people out there keeping our indoor plants in good shape (New York Times, October 7, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/07/style/plants-jobs-creative-dcareer.html). The fact that there are...
English