What you can learn from Urban Design for Wherever you Live
Urban designers have done oodles of studies over the years, and some of the lessons that their work teaches are relevant whether you live in a city or not and their research outcomes align...
Cities and Pets
Pets living in cities lead very different lives than their country cousins. In this era, city dogs are likely to have some access to nearby green areas, but that’s not necessarily the case. City...
Potential Visual Clutter Epidemic
Apparently, wallpaper is making a comeback and it’s becoming popular to put it everywhere, even on the ceiling (Lia Picard; February 2, 2023; The New York Times, “Wallpaper Everywhere All at Once;” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/style/ceiling-wallpaper.html). Do...
More on Nature Benefits!
Phillips and colleagues report on experiences during the COVID pandemic: “we examine which types of nature engagement (i.e. with nearby nature, through nature excursions and media-based) are more strongly associated with well-being. . ....
Green Spaces and Medicine
Turunen and colleagues link green and blue spaces and quality-of-life: “associations of the amounts of residential green and blue spaces within 1 km radius around the respondent’s home (based on the Urban Atlas 2012),...
Get Outdoors after Work!
Klotz and colleagues studied how employees experiencing outdoor nature after spending a day at work indoors affected their lives. The scientists determined that “Our results, based on three studies employing different methodologies (i.e., an...
Does taking photos ruin your memory?
Soares and Storm report that “The photo-taking-impairment effect is observed when photographed information is less likely to be remembered than non-photographed information. Three experiments examined whether this effect persists when multiple photos are taken....
Ceilings to Look up to… the Long Read…
It’s easy to take ceilings for granted. Most of the time for the majority of us they’re a non-event, they’re up there blocking our view of the sky, part of a structure that keeps...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Nature Urban Strolls
Sudimac, Sale, and Kuhn share that they “conducted an intervention study to investigate changes in stress-related brain regions as an effect of a one-hour walk in an urban (busy street) vs. natural environment (forest)....
How much are views worth?
Crompton and Nicholls report that “Twenty-seven empirical studies were identified that empirically estimated the impact on property values of views of open space. The review differentiated between street level and high-rise building views. Among...
Pregnant People in Green Spaces
Sun and colleagues had “pregnant women between 8 and 14 weeks’ gestational age . . . view one of three, 5-min, VR [virtual reality] videos of an urban scene with different green space levels...
Reflecting Surfaces
Humans have very special relationships with shiny, reflective surfaces. Some scientists think that this is because our sensory systems developed to find them particularly pleasant as the surfaces of bodies of clean fresh water...
Managing Sightlines
Most of us, happily, have well-functioning eyes that make it easy for us to look around us, but what are the best sightlines for us through a space? Having a sightline view of at...
Robert Downey Junior’s home
Here in The Space Doctors’ newsletter we often talk about how seeing curves (in 2-dimensions in patterns in wallpapers and upholstery and 3-dimensions in the gently rolled arms of a sofa or walls of...
Turf Houses – Biophilic Design on Steroids!
Goodness, I LOVE these! The BBC brings worldwide attention to the turf homes that have gotten people from Iceland through the winter for many generations. Their use of materials, placement in situ, and really...
Art and Real-life
Stone-Ferrier studied paintings depicting 17th-century Dutch neighborhoods and her findings highlight the cultural information that art can convey. A press release related to Stone-Ferrier’s work reports that “The importance of knowing what’s going on...
Sound Effects on Sights
Sounds have such a profound effect on us. Williams and teammates share that “Visual object recognition is not performed in isolation but depends on prior knowledge and context. Here, we found that auditory context...
Water experiences as a child – lifelong implications
Vitale and colleagues report that via “data from an 18-country sample (N = 15,743) the current work extended previous research by examining: a) blue spaces (coasts, rivers, lakes, etc.) in particular; b) associations between adults’ recalled...
Measuring Cognability
A research team based at the University of Michigan is making available, without charge, an easy-to-use tool that can be used to determine how well a particular area supports the cognitive health of aging...
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