Outsiding & Mingling
The weather is finally starting to recover from its winter slump. Leaves are beginning to unfurl on tree branches and flowers are pushing through the soil to soak up some of the increasingly warm...
Happy Memories
Don’t ignore your own positive prior garden or yard experiences. If your childhood garden featured brightly coloured furniture you loved, use the same style again in your current garden if you can, regardless of...
Water Features
Now, for the water element. If a river or stream or pond or lake or ocean borders your property, great. Make sure people in your yard or garden have an unobstructed view of it. ...
Zoning Out!
Zone out! Create zones in your yard or garden, even if they’re tiny, so that users can, to the extent possible, develop their own sets of experiences, having options boost moods. Some areas should...
Curves & Hedges
Cushions that have curves The links we make between curving things and feeling comfortable is quite strong. Curving lines in art make it likely that piece will make a space feel more blissful and...
What to do with the TV?
In a space for mingling people should be able to make ready eye contact with each other. Eye contact opportunities are the reason that in so many living rooms and family rooms around the...
Add a bit of You to Your Space
Say who you are with some things that mean something to you.. but not too much! In a space where people will have a great time together, which is what mingling is all about,...
7 Ways to Boost Work performance at Home
You can use neuroscience to develop spaces where you work to your full potential and, more probably, achieve the goals you set yourself (including those New Year Resolutions you may have set a while...
More Proof that Biological Diversity benefits us
Methorst and colleagues report that they “examine[d] the relationship between species diversity and human well-being at the continental scale, while controlling for other known drivers of well-being. We related socio-economic data from more than...
What’s the most important design element in working from home?
Mental and physical work can take multiple forms. Mental work is doing the book keeping for your business or some other “knowledge-“ type work or maybe even thinking creatively to solve some sort of...
Restaurant Plants
Yildirim and colleagues found that people have a positive response to plants in restaurants and it is logical to extend their findings to other situations in which people may be eating. The researchers found...
How new homes should be designed post-Covid
The Place Alliance surveyed people in the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 pandemic (May, 2020) and after analyzing the data they collected online have reached some conclusions about how homes should be designed in...
Ventilate!
Natural light has an almost magical effect on how we think and behave. Whenever you can incorporate it into your home, without glare, the psychological payoffs are worth the effort involved. In your house...
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…
Seeing oneself in a mirror makes it more likely we’ll follow the rules that our society has set for us, so they’re good options for places such as entry areas where properly stowing boots...
Change your viewpoint!
If your stock portfolio is filed with risky options and you’re nearing retirement, a move to a lower floor may be in order. Jami reports that “Multiple studies show that exposure to the viewpoint...
Biophilic design is growing!
Biophilic design uses the same design principles indoors that we’d find in an outdoor space where we feel very comfortable. In a workplace design study utilising biophilic design elements such as plants, water (a...
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