Outdoor Views
As Spring moves forward across the Northern Hemisphere, you may be thinking of what to do with the landscapes surrounding your home. Neuroscience research has a lot of useful information related to this topic....
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...
Garden Design – Creating the Right Path
When you are creating paths outside through gardens, etc., or inside by arranging the furniture in your living room, you can choose options that are straighter or more curved. Should you go with something...
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...
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...
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...
Biophilic Design and the brain
Latini and associates report that “a new design approach for preliminary assessment of BD [biophilic design] intervention in VR is presented [in their paper]. . . . . [it compares] three office layouts (Indoor...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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,...
The Value of Biophilic Design
The neuroscience research makes it very, very clear that being in a biophilicly designed space elevates our wellbeing. Need proof of the value of indoor biophilicly designed spaces? Here’s a representative sample of research...
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...
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)...
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,...
We take more Chances when we’re warm it seems…
Lundberg, Craig, and Peloza share that “Across four studies, we find evidence for a positive relationship between temperature and risk-taking, using multiple operationalizations of temperature and measurements of risk. . . . In particular,...
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...
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...
Is Gardening good for Mental Health?
Rosa and teammates reviewed published studies and found that “some horticultural interventions plus usual care (i.e., continuing normal routine for healthy people or treatment for unhealthy ones) may reduce depressive symptoms more than usual...
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...
Trees are good for Mental Health and Performance – the 3-30-300 Rule
Konijnendijk reports that “Having trees and other vegetation in sight from one’s home, place of work, or school has important mental health and performance benefits. . . . With public green spaces in proximity...
Trees vs Social Media and Impact on Stress
Bailey, Anderson, and Cox “explore[d] the mechanisms of active and passive leisure influence through real-time tracking of mental states while incurring a standard ‘dose’ of social media and walking. Results indicate that social media...
The “Best” Gardens
Margaret Roach (2023, “More Plants, More Life, More Pleasure: What Sets the Best Gardens Apart,” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/09/realestate/gardening-landscaping-ecological.html ) has spent a lot of quality time figuring out what sets the best...
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,...
Why is gardening good for you?
Lehberger and Sparke’s work confirms that gardening is good for our mental health. They “replicated a study conducted in 2020 in Germany, which focused on comparing garden owners and non-garden owners. Almost exactly one...
Get out there and go for an Open Water Swim!
Overbury, Conroy, and Marks determined that “Open water swimming may lead to improvements in mood and wellbeing, reductions in mental distress symptomatology, and was experienced as a positive, enriching process for many. Blue spaces...
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