The Hygge “Wood Cabin” feeling
Whether you’ll be spending the end-of-the-year holidays in a cozy log cabin nestled into a snowy forest or in your suburban family room you’re probably interested in making sure your space is welcoming and...
Urban design and city folk behaviour
Wei and colleagues found that “Perceived built environment positively predicts prosocial tendencies.” As cities are evaluated more positively, people are more likely to behave as their society prefers them to (e.g., helping others in...
Circadian lighting benefits
Researchers recently reported that “The use of circadian-informed lighting, where artificial lighting is synchronised to the natural biological rhythms or a person’s ‘body-clock’, significantly improves quality of sleep and work performance for night shift...
Community Gardening
Gray, Tracey, and Pigott report findings consistent with those of previous researchers: “Community gardening is a successful social and nature prescription intervention. Community gardening improves health, wellbeing and community connectedness. Community gardening reduces vulnerability...
Plants and mindset
Zhao and colleagues found via a literature review that “studies generally reported beneficial associations between having indoor plants and mental health, such as reducing stress, depressive symptoms, and negative emotions. . . . In...
Music after Surgery
Frezza lead a team that found via a literature review “that the simple act of listening to music after surgery, whether with headphones or through a speaker, had noticeable effects on patients during their...
Increase in uniqueness fading
Chopik and associates report that “Recent research and polling suggest that people may be more reluctant to express themselves and stand out than in previous years. . . . We examined changes in need...
Kids need Privacy
Latreille, Houle, and Coulombe interviewed people 14-20 living in public housing: “Many of the participants in our study mentioned the positive or negative influence . . . of having or not having their own...
Listening to music while working
Scott and colleagues collected data from “three studies: a pilot study of 108 employees from a software company who took part in a 2-week . . . study and self-rated their music listening and...
Humanness and Contact with Nature
Cheng, Wang, Shi, and Teng report “that perceiving humanness in others . . . significantly impacts a range of crucial outcomes. These outcomes include preserving the well-being of [those] perceived . . . fostering...
Sparkles! The Long Read
Humans relish sparkly things, ones that shine. Whether as little bits of glitter or wall sized mirrors, things that reflect light are things humans like. (Although I do have to complain about glitter in...
Polished Wood
Wooden surfaces, on walls, furniture, floors, etc., are often highly polished and shiny—so their use has all the neuroscience implications noted in the first article in this month’s articles. All on its own, however,...
Why bother to Awe…
Awed humans do all sorts of good things. Shiny things can be awe inspiring, along with a slew of other designed elements. We are awed not only by large size (think: the inside of...
How to Refresh
At this time of year, when it is becoming harder and harder to find a nicely warm, sunny day to go outside for a walk, it’s important to keep in mind all of our...
When to make a change…
Change can be difficult, particularly during months when we’re more confined to our homes and offices without convenient escapes when we can’t stand the dust and chaos of changing our worlds any longer. Don’t...
Benefits of Books
When the holidays approach, our places can start to seem visually cluttered—and sometimes this leads to a little voice in our heads suggesting we get rid of books. Unloading a few books that haven’t...
Add dynamic movement
A static space is alien to us and, over time, makes us tense. Have you ever been in a meadow on a lovely spring day when there wasn’t even the tiniest current of moving...
Don’t forget Sensory Richness!
Way, way too often when we’re pulling a space together we think only about what it will look like when we’re done—as if we don’t have ears, nose, and skin that will be in...
Go Green and Leafy
As the days get cooler you probably survey your garden with a heavy heart. You know, like Solomon, you will have to make some difficult decisions soon. Which plants should you save from becoming...
Using Natural Light with care…
We’re used to thinking that natural light is magical, something we can’t get too much of—it elevates our mood (for more on reasons to design to encourage good moods, read this article) and makes...
Lighting the Day as the Day is!
Lots of us are up at all sorts of hours. Our days get turned topsy-turvy because, since we now all work all day as we can work anywhere, we get a call from a...
Go Natural…!
When in doubt, whether you’re standing in front of a display at a home improvement store or a furniture shop, the best option, materials wise, is always the natural one. Wood, stone, wool, and...
Hotelification of the Office
Stacey Freed writes about firms’ efforts to encourage people to work onsite by making those sites oases of pleasure, really resorts for working. It remains to be seen if these attempts at “hotelification,” which...
Green green green!
“Brat” an album released by Charli XCX has made one particularly intense green the colour of the summer. Callie Holterman (2024, “You Can’t Escape This Color,” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/26/style/what-is-brat-green.html ) has written...
And just for fun…. Visual Complexity… what do you think?
People reports on what’s new in dorm room design and their article is pretty stunning, and not necessarily in a good way – many neuroscience-based design rules are broken, from creating spaces that are...
Older People and Biophilic Design
Biophilic design is a positive, no matter how old we are. Pandita and Choudhary reviewed previously published articles related to biophilic design in assisted living facilities. They found that “The research advocates the benefits...
Can we “Hear” Hot Water?
Humans are even more interesting creatures than you might have thought. Wenger and teammates report that “People can use their sense of hearing for discerning thermal properties, though they are for the most part...
Biophilic Spaces for Studying
Terblanche and Khumalo investigated studying on university campuses via a survey of user and report that “The objective of this study is to determine how biophilic designs in study areas affect the productivity of...
Biophilic Design and Creativity
Suresh and colleagues confirm that people are more creative in biophilically designed offices: “Biophilia Index has shown a significant positive correlation and a strong predictive value for creativity of employees. . . . [data...
Nature scents?
Yildirim and colleagues gathered data in multisensory virtual reality simulations of an actual workplace: “the multisensory biophilic workplace significantly improved cognitive performance, reduced stress levels, and enhanced mood states compared to the non-biophilic one....
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