Love the planet too
Designing a place where you and other space users will feel comfortable and accomplish whatever you’re motivated to get done has more than the obvious positive implications. If a place works for you and...
Keep your mind and body refreshed
At this time of year, we all need a good break, even if it doesn’t seem like we’re even doing as much as usual. Being confined to our homes, by cold weather in the...
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....
Generation What?
We regularly hear that the generation that someone’s in should drive the design of the space they’re in. Tom Standage’s review of The Generation Myth: Why When You’re Born Matters Less Than You Think...
“Awe”some is good!
The BBC has decided to talk about awe, something applied psychologists have been fascinated with for years. David Robson, on January 2, 2022 (“Awe: The ‘Little Earthquake’ That Could Free Your Mind,” https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220103-awe-the-little-earthquake-that-could-free-your-mind) talks...
Anthropology in Action
Walsh, Gorman, and Salmond studied International Space Station interiors and report their findings in this free-to-all article, which provides interesting insights into applied anthropology. The trio share that they “offer an archaeological analysis of...
How do Virtual Reality Experiences compare to those IRL?
Jin and teammates report that they “investigated how participant perceptions of a single interior environment varied among a real-world space (R) and two surrogate VR spaces (one made with 360° spherical photography and one...
If You’re in New York City . . .
A current exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum focuses on designing to support healing (https://www.cooperhewitt.org/channel/design-and-healing/). The exhibit is described on its website: “This exhibition, curated by MASS Design Group and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian...
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. . . ....
Did you know that your home design can help you eat healthily?
We are writing this as we enter a new year, but you might also be preparing to design a new home, a new space or getting ready to move completely. Well, we have some...
Stress in the City
How to design a city? Mazumder reports that during his dissertation research he found that “participants were brought into an urban environment, in the real world, but also via virtual reality, through the use...
Pantone’s Colour for 2022
Pantone has decided that the colour of the year 2022 is Very Peri, a warm periwinkle. This colour will challenge users in the year ahead: It’s pretty energizing to look at, so it’s not...
Green Cities are Good for Kids
Binter and colleagues looked at how urban design affects child development. They share that they “investigated the association between early-life urban environment and cognitive and motor function in children. We used data from 5403...
Virtual Reality Realism Matters
Newman and colleagues determined that “High realism VR environments provided a greater sense of presence and restoration. Realism is important, particularly for environmental restoration research. . . . Two studies were conducted to examine...
Time for the Familiar!
During the holidays, and actually throughout the year, familiar really can be best—we do like spaces to change or evolve slightly over time and even to vary slightly by time of day or season...
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...
Greenspace is better for childhood development
New research from Jarvis and colleagues has been published. They looked at how living near greenspace impacted childhood development. It turns out, that it does 🙂 How did they do it? They report that...
Fish Tank Heaven
We have mentioned the restorative, de-stressing, etc., power of fish tanks lots in earlier issues, but now, it seems, they’re officially “in” (see reference to the NY Times article below). Fish tanks are finally...
Pile on the Biophilic Experiences
Aristizabal and colleagues have found that more simultaneous biophilic experiences are better than fewer: when people in their study “were exposed to three biophilic design interventions (visual, auditory, and a combination (multisensory)) and a...
Biophilic Design enhancing performance, and more.
From the previous post, another study by essentially the same group: Aristizabal and colleagues also report that they collected data in spaces “allowed individuals to perform their typical workday task for 10 weeks. ....
Awe is good for you…
Want more creativity in your life? Then add a bit of awe! Zhang and team found that “on days when participants [in their study] felt more daily awe than they typically do, they reported...
Naming something? Add Nature!
If you want to give the impression that something is of value, then add some “nature” to it. Hahnel-Peeters and colleagues report that “In Study 1, we conducted a content analysis of the naming...
Getting your Home ready for the Fall
Autumn can be the most depressing season. Sure, the leaves all turn pretty colours and the nip in the air means it’s OK to have a nip or two of hot spiced punch (with...
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...
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....
Blind people and colour perception
Kim and colleagues determined that “congenitally blind and sighted individuals share in-depth understanding of object colour. Blind and sighted people share similar intuitions about which objects will have consistent colours, make similar predictions for...
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...
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