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...
What we can learn from Ancient City Design
Tom Seiple makes a good case for considering ancient city design as we move forward trying to resolve today’s design problems (2023, “Ancient Cities Have Lessons UX/UI Designers Can use Right Now, Fast Company,...
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,...
How Gardening your front lawn promotes sociability!
Chalmin-Pui and colleagues “explore[d] why people garden in front gardens, how social cohesion may emerge from front gardening activities, and the health benefits of the presence of front gardens for residents and passersby. Front...
Nostalgia
Design can encourage people to feel nostalgic, using images, objects, or scents, for example. Abeyta and Juhl’s work, building on previous studies, “hypothesized that nostalgia, a bittersweet emotion that entails reflecting sentimentally on the...
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...
Nature makes us more sociable!
Arbuthnott learned via a literature review that “Nature exposure increases prosocial behavior, decreases antisocial behavior, and increases ratings of social connection and satisfaction. Prosocial and antisocial behavior effects are observed with brief nature exposure,...
More than what’s in your wine glass…
Professor Joy (I am not making this up!) and team from the University of British Columbia assessed “a number of items including the material features of the winery and the sensorial theme, such as...
Nature vs Malls – places and thinking
Scherz and colleagues found that people have different sorts of thoughts about other people and about places in different sorts of public spaces. The researchers determined that “Self-related thoughts were less likely in a...
More nature = less phone use
Minor and colleagues found that “Evidence links greenspace exposure with restorative benefits to cognition and well-being, yet nature contact is declining for younger demographics. . . . we analyzed ~2.5 million observations of logged...
Same place same behaviour
Research study with mice indicates that “Environmental context plays a major role in chemical dependence and addiction, inducing or reinforcing compulsive drug-seeking behavior. . . . ‘To understand what this means in humans, simply...
Desirable Amounts of Greenery
In a study relevant to the design of offices everywhere, at home and elsewhere, Elbertse, and Steenbekkers report that their “study aims to explore the effect of different volumes of indoor greenery on perceived...
Neighbourhood Perceptions, Evaluations and Wellbeing
Ayalon determined that “the importance of subjective mediators, rather than objective ones in explaining the association between perceived neighborhood characteristics and wellbeing.” Wellbeing was higher when perceived neighborhood disorder was lower and neighborhood cohesion...
Feeling Happy at Home
Shepherd, Selvey, Earon, and Wiking studied row house communities in Denmark and in the United Kingdom and learned that “The key drivers to happiness [resident wellbeing]: balancing the private and the communal; personalising the...
Memories, Selfies and other Photos
Selfies play a different role in our lives than other photos. A Niese-lead team found that “When photographing moments in their lives, people can use a first-person (capturing the scene as they saw it)...
Growing up Green is Good!
Mygind and colleagues determined via data collected for 5-to 12-year olds that “Vegetation cover around the home might support the formation of social skills through higher order reasoning about emotion experience and cause and...
Setting the Thermometer!
This is the season for thermometer debates—the windows open (or close if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere) and in homes and offices people use whatever means at their disposal to get the temperature set...
Speaking and Designing
It may not seem that the language we’re speaking should have much effect on our responses to designed spaces but indeed it does. We pick up on social cues such as the language being...
Get your Kids into Nature
Li and Sullivan determined that when “Perceived childhood nature exposure was calculated as a cumulative score based on the perceived nature in residential surroundings from up to three childhood home locations weighted by duration...
Entertaining in a Small Space
Whether you’ll be able to entertain any but the very closest of friends in your tiny space will depend a lot on the space. If you can set up a seating area to share,...
Building in Good Neighbours!
We can build and use our homes in ways that increase our positive bonds with the people who live nearby. Sit on your front porch or steps if you have them from time to...
How to design so people… behave…!
Want people to do something particular in a space? Sit quietly and read? Enjoy a movie with others without interjecting comments for all to hear? Eat using the table manners their grandmother would be...
Trees make for Safer Streets
Zhu, Sze, and Newnam report that a “street tree is considered a traffic calming measure.” Findings from the Zhu, Sze, and Newnam study “indicate that road width, bus stop, tram station, on-street parking, and...
Does where we live change our values?
Chishima and colleagues report that “person-environment fit between individual values (traditional vs. modern) and environmental characteristics (rural vs. urbanizing communities) promotes place attachment and participation. . . . we qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed one...
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