What does your home say about you?
At least according to the experts in these sorts of things, it seems most likely that people will form their most useful opinions of others when they actually have some idea who those other...
Getting along in the office too
Talking of love. Creating offices where people are going to get along is also important. We are not necessarily talking about having a romance over the water-cooler, but so people feel comfortable in a...
Photos on Dating Sites
There is an entire industry, oodles of professionals, who want to make sure that you dating site photo is all that it can possibly be and immediately leads to the love of your life....
How background music affects our interactions.
Chang and Kim’s findings will be particularly interesting to you if you’ve spent a lot of time during lockdowns watching movies. They report that “Films in general, and background music in particular, have the...
How Openness among Residents blooms
The personality makeup of citizens seems to evolve with neighbourhoods. Gotz and teammates report that “Rising house prices may change the personality make-up of US cities within a few years, with residents becoming increasingly...
Want to make a good first impression?
We all like to be liked and want to make a good impression. Tooley “found that a space that is aesthetically satisfying and valued, contributes to the likeability of its occupants. . . ....
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...
Creating places to mingle in your home
Places where people will have positive, pleasant conversations: Will allow everyone who wants to make eye contact at any time they feel like it. Parties require the sorts of everyone sits in a ring...
Which face mask is best?
How easy or difficult is it to understand someone wearing different sorts of face masks? Researchers lead by Brown determined via data collected from people with normal hearing that “cotton masks with filter inserts...
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...
How to throw a great party!
THE ENVIRONMENTAL NEUROSCIENCE OF A GREAT PARTY (THE KIND OF TITLE THAT DEFINITELY DESTROYS THE FUN) ‘Tis the time of year for parties—and in many parts of the world, with the right disease fighting...
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...
How to make Food taste nicer! The Definitive Guide!
So, you’ve got people coming over and you’d like them to leave with memories of eating all sorts of yummy (and if you’re really hardcore, nutritious) food at your party—and you definitely don’t want...
Holiday Colours
There are particular hues that we’re much more likely to see at the end of the year and in related celebrations than others. Don’t be surprised if they have you feeling in very particular...
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...
Refreshment time!
During the holidays, we often need to not only work at whatever our job is but also spend time catching up with family, friends, and colleagues, all of this can lead us desperate to...
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;...
Invisible Differences
Some differences between people who will visit a space are invisible until they clearly are not so at all—until eyes start to water and noses get red, for example. You love Fluffy your cat...
Senses
Sometimes people to your home have some sort of “difference” that they’d rather not be publicly discussed (although today there are many fewer topics that fit into this category than in the past) but...
Designing for Who You Are and Who They Probably Are too!
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 themselves. But who are you? Who are the people who...
Entertaining and Eating Together
One of the fabulous things about autumn is the cosying up and cooking for family and friends (as well as just for ourselves). Creating a space for comfortable eating in your home is important...
Fall and Food
One of the first questions that generally gets asked about design and eating is if colours on walls, plates, etc., can influence how much we eat. The answer: surface colours do indeed influence our...
Refresh your Home during the Fall season
Design can encourage us to be more active, even to workout. Design can help you transition from making excuses for avoiding working out to exercising with vigor and enthusiasm (at least some enthusiasm). As...
Temperature Wars
This is the time of year when there are often quite lively, shall we say, debates over where to set the thermostat in your home or office. Please consider this article a public service,...
Hygge
Hygge actually accomplishes what it claims—it relaxes us in a powerful, profound way. This will surprise no one who’s read articles we’ve written in the past that have reported that: Being in warm, dim...
Airports are Going Biophilic!
A recent article in the New York Times (“The Trouble With Airports, and How to Fix Them,”) should brighten the day of anyone who has ever, or may ever need to spend time in airports....
Do masks make us distance less?
Lee and Chen found that face masks may influence how far we choose to be from other people. The researchers report that via data collected through an online survey they found that “A smaller...
Live in a Green Area, if you can
Atiken found that “People who live in green neighbourhoods are less likely to develop cardiovascular disease. . . . The researchers analysed the odds of developing any new cardiovascular disease, and the number of...
Learning Spaces – 1
Cognitive learning is hard, hard brain work, whether you’re 8 or 80. Spaces where you plan to learn new material, whether they’re a home schoolroom, a home office, or a classroom outside a home...
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