Finishes that Complete Things in just the Right Way
Finishes tend to be an afterthought—we agonize over a colour for a surface, but not over whether that surface should be shiny or matte, for example. This is too bad as surfaces have a...
Managing Acoustics
Sometimes people create a whole space without considering what the ambient soundscape will be. They may consider where to place speakers for the sound system they will install but not what user ears will...
Work in Movement….
People creating a space rarely remember to add elements that will move gently, peacefully. Gentle movement is an important principle of biophilic design, discussed here. The goal is to add some curtains, a wall...
Transition Areas
Way too often we create the focal areas in our homes and imagine, it seems, that people will experience one space or another but not those in between. Zoning is key for the best...
Historical Origins of the De-Cluttered Home
As those of us to whom Santa was generous this holiday season start to think seriously about where they’re going to put our gift haul, de-cluttering is getting a lot of attention, again. In...
Free Zones – in Praise of Basements!
Spaces where we can relax as we explore our own minds and work toward goals that are important to us are vital for our mental health. In “In Praise of Unfinished Basements,” Brady Brickner-Wood...
Barbie’s Dream House
Are you one of the millions of kids who played happily with a Barbie Dream House? If you are, you’ll relish reading Julie Lasky’s “A Six-Decade Tour of Barbie’s Dreamhouses” (2022, The New York...
Shiny or Matte?
Huang, Song, and Yang report that “glossy (vs. matte) finishes increase consumers’ perceived effectiveness of a problem-avoiding product while the reverse is true for a problem-approaching product. . . . we demonstrate that glossy [matte] finishes lead consumers...
Do you go to Antique shops?
You’ll be interested in Ross, Bolton, and Meloy’s work. They found that “The market for secondhand items – goods previously owned by others- is rapidly growing. Disordered environments, characterized by disorganized or messy product...
Learning in a Space
A UCLA press release shares that “Wearing VR headsets, participants explored one of two environments — a fantasy fairyland or a science fiction landscape — where they could click to learn the Swahili or...
Designing for Mental Health – The Long Read
Every day is not a good day, no matter what colour you paint the walls in your office and regardless of the pattern and texture of your entryway rug. The design of the places...
Feeling Better Physically, Via Design – The Long Read
You may be thinking that the only way your design decisions will influence your physical health is if that oh so pretty throw you buy to make your winter sofa cozy or that incredible...
Why and How you need to manage your AirCon!
The heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems that keep your home from being a scorching desert in the summer and a desolate tundra in the winter can make you a happier, healthier person,...
Circadian Lighting for Mental and Physical Health
Circadian lighting keeps our stress levels in check, improving our physical health, and keeping our brains purring along effectively. It complements the light provided by the sun wherever we are, helping us live our...
Lessons Learned During the Pandemic
Lots of environmental psychology research was conducted during the pandemic and investigators largely confirmed findings from previous studies. Data collected during the pandemic, mainly during 2020 and 2021, verified that: Ventilation has a significant...
Live a Full Life – Clutter Free – THE LONG READ
The end-of-year holiday season is an interesting time, environmental-psych wise. When we massage our homes into just the right spaces to mingle with others and get in some badly needed time for solo revitalization,...
Designing for High-energy parties!
So far, we’ve been talking about creating a pleasant space for mingling and low-key social gatherings, not ones where people will fall asleep, but ones for pleasant, upbeat, maybe even meaningful, conversations with others....
Seasonal Scenting
When people visit our homes we want it to smell “good”—the amount of air freshener sold during the holidays, particularly of holiday scents like cinnamon-y ones, indicates that we may actually be desperate to...
Planning for Pleasant Conversations
The end of the year is the time for lots of idealized thinking about positive conversations—maybe memories of previous ones around a holiday table, planned ones with family and friends in front of a...
The Science of Hygge
At this time of year hygge gets a lot of press, and it turns out that there is a lot of scientific support for it. Penelope Green wrote an article about hygge in the...
Resolutions you should make for the year
Looking for New Year’s resolutions to ring in 2023? Yes? Then resolve in the year ahead to: Cut the clutter in your home, as discussed in this article. Add opportunities to mentally refresh, as...
Why do we love the sea, lakes and rivers?
In “The Surprising Benefits of Blue Spaces” Frankie Adkins and Katherine Latham (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221108-the-doctors-prescribing-blue-therapy) talk about the benefits of time on the ocean and in blue spaces: “When Homo sapiens first evolved some 300,00 years...
The Science of Opera
Interested in opera and in neuroscience? You’ll be fascinated by this article merging the two: Frank Rose’s “Music, Science and Healing Intersect in an A.I. Opera” (The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/arts/music/artificial-intelligence-opera.html). A taste: “’We’ve...
Why we go back to places
Winet and O’Brien report that “In eight experiments with nearly 6,000 total participants, [they]explored whether people tend to prefer novel, exciting experiences, such as trying a new restaurant, or familiar ones, such as returning...
When and how to face the camera
Research by Fauville and colleagues in the virtual world is probably relevant in real life also: “the impact of three nonverbal cues displayed through video conference screenshots (i.e., gaze direction, distance between the face...
Thinking while Standing
Bhat and associates report that “The present study investigated the effects of attending lectures in sitting and standing postures on executive function of young adults. . . . Attending a lecture in a standing...
Seeing, Hearing birds
Hammond and team studied implications of seeing or hearing birds. They “used the Urban Mind smartphone application to examine the impact of seeing or hearing birds on self-reported mental wellbeing in real-life contexts. A sample...
Spiciness and Expectations
Wang, Yang, and Zheng studied how the the way hot sauces look how spicy we perceive them to be, determining that “red hot sauce still generates the strongest expected spiciness. Higher saturation of hot...
Managing Office Temperatures
Research at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for the Built Environment (CBE) “found no evidence for a relationship between temperature and work performance within the range temperatures commonly found in office buildings, and certainly...
Positive Effects of At-Work Nature
Loder and Stoner reviewed studies related to nature (for example, plants, nature views) in workplaces. They report, for example, that “Research has shown that contact with nature can improve task performance, usually through increased...
English