US Green Building Council (USGBC) LEED points can be awarded for the creation of “healthful, comfortable, and productive workplaces,” i.e., those that are ergonomically strong. Ergonomics related points are allocated in LEED’s “Innovation in Design and Innovation in Operations” category. Alan Hedge has posted a checklist detailing USGBC requirements for ergonomics-related innovation and design points and a user survey that covers ergonomics issues (http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/cuergoUSGBC.html ).

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Research by Chen has shown that viewing (but not owning) visual art can be as beneficial to some people as owning art is to others. People who prefer variety in the art they experience can benefit by visiting art that they do not own; art collectors prefer a longer term relationship with particular pieces of art. Chen writes that “The present research challenges the presupposition that possession is the ultimate expression of consumer desire . . . [viewing] could also provide value of the extended self through immaterial memories that enrich human sense and life experiences.”

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Men have better visual-spatial skills than women. Do male infants have better visual-spatial skills than female infants? Recent research with 5-month old babies indicates that they do.

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The sections of the human brain that process visual information respond more strongly to objects of value than other objects. Value is determined by assessing past rewards. In addition, valued objects may be seen more clearly than other items.

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When the architecture of Western (i.e., in mainland Europe, the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand) condominiums conform to feng shui principles, those condominiums are worth more money than condominiums that are not designed recognizing feng shui’s tenets. As Bond states, “Feng Shui impacts positively on property values in the West.”

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In countries where people regularly bicycle, walk, or take public transportation to work, school, or shopping (termed “active transportation”), citizens are less obese. Americans are less likely to travel via active transport than Europeans, but factors other than lifestyle lead to these behaviors. Bassett and his colleagues indicate that it is easy to use active transport in Europe because cities are more compact, population density is higher, and infrastructure is more common that makes traveling by car less critical.

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People value living near historic homes. Research by Narwold has found that in San Diego, CA, “A [nonhistoric] house’s value is increased by 3.8% by having a historical house within 250 feet and by 1.6% by having a historical home located between 250 and 500 feet away.” A “historic home” in San Diego is one that has been designated as historically significant by the state.

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Westerhoff has effectively summarized existing research on how personality changes during the course of our lives. He reports that “People tend to be open to new experiences during their teens and early 20s . . . but after a person’s early 20s, the fascination with novelty declines, and resistance to change increases.” This evolution in openness to novelty has implications for responses to atypical environments.

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Adding photos of patients’ faces to medical files increases the empathy that radiologists reviewing those files feel for the patients shown and the care with which the doctors assess patient information. Photographs of individuals and groups who will use a space in development could be expected to have the same influence on designers.

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Kingston Heath, professor of historical preservation at the University of Oregon, discussed situated regionalism at the annual meeting of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Environments. He observed that “Buildings and settings, alone, do not make place . . . People, in their interaction with the natural and built environment, make place.” Vernacular architecture is thus in transition as the people who use a place change. Heath suggested that architects “need to be studying patterns of contradiction that show how past forms are being altered to meet the needs of people that haven’t been accommodated in design.”

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McDermott, Lehr, and Oxenham investigated the processes people use to recognize music and other sounds. They found that humans focus on patterns of changes (relative pitches as opposed to absolute pitches) when determining if they have heard a version (transposition) of a particular set of sounds before. Not only is relative pitch used in this way, but so is brightness (“perceptual correlate of the center of mass of the frequency spectrum . . .sounds with more high-frequency energy are brighter than those with less high-frequency energy”) and relative loudness.

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When human beings become disoriented in a space, what cues do they use to reorient themselves? Adults use features of a room (colors of a particular wall) and geometric information about a room (shape of space, for example) to reorient, but they use different information at different times. As Ratliff and Newcombe describe, “Adults favor geometric information in a small room [4 ft x 6 ft x 6 ft in the experiment] and rely on features in a larger room [8 ft x 12 ft x 8 ft in the experiment] . . . . experience in a larger room produces dominance of features over geometric cues in a small room.”

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Green design features are a very important consideration for people considering buying homes in master-planned communities. Green features that are important for people purchasing homes in green and conventional communities are: having open green spaces, a walkable community, energy efficient appliances, water efficient appliances, indoor air quality, and overall energy efficiency. People buying homes in either a green or conventional communities did not feel that it was important to have public transportation nearby or a dog park close by their new house.

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Tenants’ responses to the people who manage their apartment complexes have a significant influence on their satisfaction with those complexes. As James and his colleagues found after examining “the relative importance of seven core factors in determining tenant satisfaction: parking, noise level, landscaping, safety, building construction, office staff, and maintenance service . . . tenant relations with management office staff [are] the most influential factor in tenant satisfaction.”

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Sugiyama and his colleagues investigated which attributes of neighborhood open spaces influence health, life satisfaction, and walking (outdoor activity) for older individuals. They determined that among the people who participated in their study “pleasantness and safety of open spaces were relevant to participants’ life satisfaction, whereas the quality of paths to open spaces was associated with walking behavior. The distance to neighborhood open spaces was also correlated with life satisfaction.” No attributes of the neighborhood outdoor spaces studied were associated with participants’ health.

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People tend to travel from one place to another using the same route, time after time. Decisions about where to live, and whether to own a car or not have a significant influence on reasonable travel options, and “Using (and getting used to) certain modes of transport enhances the organization of daily activity patterns from the travel mode’s perspective. For instances, typical car drivers develop a space extensive and/or time intensive lifestyle, leaving no or little choice options to organize their daily activity travel.”

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Semenza and March researched the influence of straightforward community based interventions on the quality of life in urban neighborhoods. In a Portland, OR based project they determined that after an intervention “To engage low- to moderate-income, urban communities in creating pleasant amenities in the public right-of-way, including ecologically built information kiosks, benches, trellises for hanging gardens, and interactive art features such as large street paintings and art walls . . . [a post-intervention survey of people living within two blocks of the interventions showed that] 53% rated their neighborhood better than before and 44% or 53% rated their present neighborhood as an excellent or good place to live, respectively. In open-ended qualitative comments, 30% mentioned increased social interactions, 13% revealed an enhanced sense of place, 43% described neighborhood participation, and 20% discussed aesthetic aspects of their local environment.”

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Feelings of cleanliness influence moral judgments. Schnall, Benton, and Harvey found that after people were exposed to words associated with cleanliness or washed their hands, “[study] participants found certain moral actions to be less wrong than did participants who had not been exposed to a cleaning manipulation . . .The current studies provide evidence that, in the context of morality, purity is not just a metaphor. Presumably because human beings aim to distinguish themselves from other animals, they attempt to place themselves close to higher spiritual beings by being physically and morally pure . . . Because of its potential to lead people to regard moral actions as pure and good, cleanliness might indeed feel as if it were next to godliness.”

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The UK’s Designing for the 21st Century Initiative, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and the Royal College of Art have jointly assessed the workplace design related needs of office workers over the age of 50. Their findings are available in a report available at the website noted below. Among the general information reported: “The office spaces [open-plan spaces in the UK, Japan, and Australia] provided did not, facilitate the best environment for a host of essential knowledge-work activities which are dependent on deeper concentration. Planning, analysis, creation, processing and writing of large and complex systems of information require uninterrupted thought, a state of mind deemed difficult when the open-plan office . . . Generally, there were few spaces specifically allocated for concentration tasks. Inward-looking thought activities appeared to be underestimated in relation to the communication and teamwork aspects of knowledge work processes.”

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Does the weather affect human moods? German researchers studied the influence of temperature, wind strength, amount of sunlight, precipitation, air pressure, and length of time between sunrise and sunset on mood. None of these factors influenced the general positive mood of the population, although individuals did respond emotionally to them. The individuals tested did not respond consistently, so an overall effect was not observed. Temperature, wind strength, and sunlight did influence negative mood. Sunlight directly influenced feelings of tiredness, and influenced the effects of precipitation and air pressure on tiredness.

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Richard Latto, a professor at the University of Liverpool, has investigated popular abstract art images. He determined that “We like to look at the human body or parts of the body like the face and hands, stylized representations like stick figures and organic forms of the kind incorporated into the work of Salvador Dali and Francis Bacon. Certain landscapes and horizontal and vertical lines are also popular because they resonate with our visual systems, which have been tuned by evolution and experience to respond particularly to these biologically and socially important stimuli.”

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After children learn the names of colors, a different part of their brain is used to perceive color. Researchers found that once people have categories they can use to describe colors, they use those categories to perceive shades to which they are exposed.

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An optical illusion increases the likelihood of not accurately assessing the position of moving objects. This illusion increases the probability that tennis referees will make mistakes when ruling that a ball is out of play. Since moving objects are perceived to shift in line with the direction they are traveling, balls are more likely to be called out of bounds when they are in bounds than the reverse situation can be expected to occur.

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Children find different aspects of their environment significant than adults do, even if the adults are attempting to evaluate a space in the children’s context. Simkins and Thwaites discuss the importance of fully exploring children’s place-based needs by collecting information (through multiple methods) from children themselves, because “Places significant in the routine lives of young children do not always correspond with conventional professional, or even adult, priorities and, furthermore, they [study results] show there is a risk of loss rather than gain if such different perceptions fail to emerge during site and user surveys.”

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College students who are more frequent users of campus green spaces rate their quality of life higher than students who do not use green spaces as often. They also felt better able to apply what they learned than students less likely to use green spaces.

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Whether or not a baby is placed in an incubator after birth has been linked to depression levels in young adults. Babies who have been placed in incubators are less likely to be depressed as young adults and researchers hypothesize that this may be related, at least in part, to some feature of the physical environment within the incubator.

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The color red influences a man’s perceptions of a woman’s attractiveness. Men are unaware of the fact that red makes them feel a woman is more attractive. Elliot and Niesta observed this effect when men appraised photos of women wearing red shirts or assessed women whose photographs were framed by red borders.

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Miller and his colleagues presented evidence at a recent American Heart Association meeting indicating that listening to favorite music has health benefits. Their work has shown that music that makes listeners feel good produces an emotional response that improves blood vessel function, increasing blood flow. Music perceived as stressful reduces blood flow.

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People form stronger associations between themselves and nature than they do between themselves and the built environment. Schultz and Tabanico hypothesize that this may be because humans have a “biological predisposition for a positive association with nature.” They explore alternate explanations, however, and discuss the fact that “approximately 25% of our samples [exhibited] a stronger association between self and built environments.”

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Multiple factors could determine an individual’s satisfaction with his/her neighborhood. Fleury-Bahi and her colleagues have determined that the social image of the neighborhood and the relationships (or potential) relationships an individual has to co-residents are the key determinants of residential satisfaction. Physical features of the environment were included in the tested model.

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Van Patten and Williams have probed the meaning and significance of seasonal homes. They have found that these residences are viewed primarily as refuges from the demands of daily life. These spaces are often central to their owners’ conceptions of themselves, and the residents feel that it is important that they are integrated into the communities surrounding their homes and not be seen as “the summer people,” etc. Among those interviewed, “Regardless of whether respondents owned their seasonal home for only a few years or passed it down through the family, it was discussed as a central organizing fixture of life, often involving extended family. It was an anchor in an increasingly fragmented modern world.”

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Wayfinding involves finding our way through a space. Research by Spiers and Maguire has shown that “Wayfinding involves more than simply planning, and carrying out plans. It can evoke a range of emotions, spark interest in the surrounding environment and lead one to consider the thoughts of fellow wayfinders.”

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Designers can be asked to create virtual as well as physical places. Case has identified three forms of virtual environments: intelligent reality (“a digital environment where computers are invisible and intelligence is invested in everyday objects”), real reality (these “digital facsimiles of real environments . . .are tangible, are real . . . the paraphernalia required of virtual reality, such as helmets, gloves, chambers, and body suits . . . are no longer necessary. . . [and are] make possible by the rapidly evolving field of nanotechnology”), and neural reality (“neural reality is based on the possibility of placing nano-scale devices into our nerve systems, which can transmit all five sense”). He finds that “Their qualities will require a new approach to design, one that is dynamic rather than static and process oriented rather than object oriented.”

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Digitally designed architecture is transforming the built environment. As Reffat summarizes, “In digitally designed architecture, computational design models capable of dynamic transformation are replacing the static norms of conventional processes favoring computationally generated complexities. With digital architecture, the relationship between architecture and its means of production is being challenged by the digital processes of design and fabrication.”

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Bradley traces the evolution of the American office by focusing on the way in which the relative power of employers and employees has been manifested in workplace design. He observes that “the application of systematic management techniques to clerical labour had the effect of symbolically and functionally fusing workers with their desks, and the relationship between worker and desk thus became a vital concern . . . For office design, the convergence of the cubicle with networked computing marks a moment when, one might say, connection takes over from construction as the primary means of control. . . . In combination with ICT-supported surveillance of workflows, the flexible modular designs of modern cubicles and the ubiquity of the networked workstation embody the control afforded by this new panopticism, and carry forward a now largely automated clinical gaze with regard to the monitoring and operationalization of workflows. . . . As the interface between individual workers and the organization for which they labour, the desk has gone from being an elaborate and idiosyncratic private domain to a streamlined and very public point of articulation between worker and work.”

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Praus reports on DEGW research related to Generation Y and workplace design. DEGW found that the most important influences on company and job attractiveness were salary and career prospects. The physical design of the workplace and flexible work opportunities were both important as well, and equally so. In addition, “Efficient workplaces that can accommodate technology, flexible ways of working, and support leisure and family time will be critical to future business success.” DEGW collected information from German, Swiss and Austrian students entering the workforce in 2008 and human resources professionals employed by major global companies.

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Song and Schwarz have researched the influence of type font style on perceptions of activities described in typed messages. They learned that the readability of a typeface has important ramifications: “People misread the ease of processing instructions as indicative of the ease with which the described behavior can be executed. In the present studies, participants reported that the behavior would take more time, would feel less fluent and natural, and would require more skill, and hence were less willing to engage in it, when the instructions were printed n a difficult –to-read rather than an easy-to-read font.” This finding has repercussions for sign design. The easy to read fonts tested was Arial, and the more difficult to read fonts used were Mistral and Brush.

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Fostervold and Nersveen investigated the influences of varying the proportions of direct and indirect light in offices on worker experience. Their “analyses of health, well-being and cognitive performance revealed a short-term increase of somatic symptoms in [mixed direct and indirect lighting] and reduced long-term severity levels of job stress in [direct lighting]. Analyses of the combined groups showed, likewise, a short-term increase in subjective symptoms for direct lighting compared to indirect lighting and a long-term reduction in the severity level of job stress for uniform compared to mixed lighting.”

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Nostalgia counteracts loneliness. Including personally meaningful objects in a space can thus help boost mood and eliminate other negative mental states associated with loneliness. While “Loneliness reduces perceptions of social support, but increases nostalgia. Nostalgia, in turn, increases perceptions of social support.” The researchers conclude that “The past, when appropriately harnessed, can strengthen psychological resistance to the vicissitudes of life.”

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Scott Francisco discusses DEGW’s experience designing workspaces in the latest issue of Insights. He states that “Finding the right solution for workspace [design] is a ‘wicked problem.’ The process is not mathematical, linear, or rational. It is based simultaneously on meaning and markets, values and regulations, cultures and techniques – and each of these is in constant flux!”

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The US Green Building Council and McGraw-Hill Construction surveyed people who purchased green homes in the last 3 years. These researchers found that “Going green was the top reason cited by survey respondents for remodeling their homes. Environmental benefits such as lower energy costs and healthier indoor air were identified by 42% of respondents as the main reason for home improvements; 34% cited increased comfort; and 24% noted improved appearance.” In addition, “Almost half (44%) of homes renovated between 2005 and 2007 used products chosen for their green attributes.”

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When we feel we’re not in control of our own lives, we perceive our world differently than we do when we feel in control. When we’re out of control, our impressions of the world around us are distorted: “Adam Galinsky (Kellogg Graduate School of Management) and former Kellogg doctoral student Jennifer Whitson (University of Texas, Austin) report in the journal Science how even the most normal among us strive, intensely but unconsciously, to find and impose order in our unruly world. . . we trick ourselves into seeing and believing things that simply do not exist. . . finding meaningful and coherent relations among unrelated stimuli. . . Lack of control instills a need for order and leads to an occasional visual hiccup.”

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Bluish light in workplaces has positive influences on office workers’ attitudes and general alertness. When office workplaces are equipped with blue-enriched white light (17000K), white-collar workers have more positive perceptions of their own mood, work performance, and ability to concentrate than workers in white light (4000K). Workers under bluish light are also more alert during the workday than people working under white light.

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Hand temperature influences perceptions and behaviors. Williams and Bargh compared the responses of people who had just held warm drinks with people who had just held cold drinks and found that individuals whose hands had just been warmed judged others to be more generous and caring than people who had just held cold drinks. In addition, people were more generous when their hands were warm than when their hands were cold.

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The amount of green space near their homes is related to the weights of inner city children. Children living in inner city neighborhoods with more green space (as determined from analysis of satellite photographs) have significantly lower body mass index changes as they grow taller than children living in areas with smaller amounts of green space.

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Even pre-school children playing games experience a home field advantage. Han, Li, and Shi conclude that “The [pre-school] owner of a territory did enjoy an advantage over visitors. On another’s turf, visitors turned out to be more prosocial. Such a tendency to be prosocial was attributed either to the disadvantage of not being on one’s own turf or to the disadvantage of not being empowered to dictate terms.”

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Placing tops with shaped openings on recycling containers influences recycling compliance in public settings. Recycling is more likely to occur when containers have a top with either a narrow slit or a round hole for the disposing of paper or bottles, respectively. Duffy and Verges compared levels of recyclable materials present when these specialized lids were in use and when recycling containers did not have lids in the course of the project that uncovered the value of shaped container tops.

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The appearance of a neighborhood is the most important influence on how satisfied residents are living there. Hur and Morrow-Jones conducted the research that reached this conclusion to learn more about peoples’ intentions to move or remodel.

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Richard Mooney and Stephen Shea, researchers at Duke University, have found out why scents are important triggers of long term memories of other individuals. They determined that the same part of the brain assesses scents and forms long term memories of others.

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Scientists at IBM’s Watson Research Center in Cambridge, MA have created an interactive website where researchers can use innovative tools to visualize data they have collected (web address below). People who have collected information on a topic can upload their data to the site and use any of the assorted tools provided to develop ways to present that information visually to others. All data uploaded to the site are visible to future visitors. There is no charge for use of the visualization tools.

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Frances Kuo and Andrea Faber Taylor, professors at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, have determined that children with ADHD can pay attention better after a 20-minute walk in a park than after a walk of the same length in a downtown area or in a residential neighborhood. In a rigorously conducted experiment, Kuo and Faber Taylor “calculated . . . that the dose of nature had effects the same size or even larger than the dose of [ADHD] medication. . . The evidence suggests that natural settings can benefit everyone, even children (and adults) who have not been diagnosed with ADHD.”

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Ozcan Vieira’s doctoral dissertation (Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands) focused on the influence of product sounds on human responses to objects. It is reasonable to extrapolate her results to the soundscapes of places. Vieira found that sounds influence expectations about product experience and that “a complimentary and meaningful relationship exists between a product and its sounds . . . a well-designed sound should be typical to the product, be informative about the product’s operation cycle, and convey implicit/explicit characteristics of the product.”

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Carney and his colleagues have analyzed the appearance of offices belonging to people who are politically liberal and to people who are politically conservative. They found that conservatives tend to have tidier and better organized offices than liberals. Offices belonging to liberals are more colorful, stylish, distinctive, comfortable, modern, and cluttered than those of conservatives.

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Researchers from the Center for the Built Environment at the University of California, Berkeley, have prepared a case study of the earth friendly building that houses the Carnegie Institute for Global Ecology at Stanford University. The researchers attribute the high occupant satisfaction with the structure and the building’s efficient use of resources to several factors. These include close collaboration between engineers, architects and the ultimate users; establishment of common resource-efficient goals; optimal solar siting of the building; readily accessible outdoor work/meeting spaces; radiant cooling systems; and a night-sky cooling system which sprays water (which is recycled) on the roof of the structure at night. Temperatures in the building are sometimes over 76 degrees F but there have been no complaints about these temperatures and the authors conclude that “This situation supports the theory of adaptive comfort, which states that in naturally ventilated buildings – where occupants are connected more closely to the outdoor conditions, have more control over windows, and access to increased air movement – people will stay satisfied in conditions outside of the comfort range of 68 to 72 degrees F.”

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Recent research by Finnis and Walton contradicts information from previous studies, which reported that walking speed was related to city size, with people living in larger communities generally walking faster than people in more rural areas. Finnis and Walton found that walking speed was more closely tied to the ease of walking through an area than population concentration. This research is important because “Knowledge of pedestrian walking speeds is essential to accommodate time budgets. Urban planners take time budgets into consideration when planning the placement of transit facilities. For example, a transit facility accessible to pedestrians within a 20 minute walk, assuming a walking speed of 80 m per minute, has a catchment area of 8 square kilometers. When walking speed is increased by 10%, the catchment area is increased by 20%.

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Pedestrians and cyclists over the age of 70 prefer different features in the routes they are traveling along than walkers and cyclists who are 40-49 years old. Older walkers and riders “appreciate pedestrian crossings, signalized intersections and cycle paths more than younger respondents do.” Older individuals prefer that paths be paved while younger individuals are more concerned that the routes provided lessen travel time. Older individuals are also more concerned about following rules as they walk and bike than people 40-49.

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Floyd and his colleagues assessed activity levels in 28 different parks in Tampa and Chicago. They found that in Tampa, people in parks walked more when it was warmer, when there were fewer organized activities (such as softball games), and when the park was located in an Hispanic neighborhood. People also walked more when there were fewer shaded areas. When there are shaded spaces, such as picnic shelters, people tend to sit under these structures and activity levels in the parks in general decrease. Walking in Chicago parks was also more prevalent when there were fewer organized activities at the park and in African American neighborhoods. The researchers observed that “Chicago study parks had more athletic courts, sports fields and playgrounds and lower levels of sedentary activity.”

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Since there have been cars, some people have been saying that the fronts of those cars look like faces and express personality. Windhager, Slice, Schaefer, Oberzaucher, Thorstensen, and Grammer are the first to empirically investigate this relationship and their findings are reported in Human Nature. The researchers found that humans infer that cars have specific personality traits, based on their head-on appearance: “Overall, people agreed which type of car possesses certain traits. The authors found that people liked cars most that had a wide stance, a narrow windshield, and/or widely space, narrow headlights. The better the subjects liked a car, the more it bore shape characteristics corresponding to high values of what the authors termed ‘power,’ indicating that both men and women like mature, dominant, masculine, arrogant, angry-looking cars.”

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Major changes in our environment, such as moving from one home to another, cause us to bring important values to mind and those values can guide our behavior. Verplanken and his colleagues, for example, found that participants in a study they conducted “who had recently moved and were environmentally concerned used the car less frequently for commuting to work” than participants “who were environmentally concerned but had not recently moved.” Both before and after the move, the distance that study participants needed to travel between work and home made driving and using other means to travel to work viable options.

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Creating places for worship builds community. Mazumdar and Mazumdar have written an interesting case study related to this phenomenon that focuses on Hindus in Southern California. They detail the process of creating a site for worship and the psychological challenges underlying those processes. The researchers’ work “demonstrates how the creation of the temple, with its specific architectural elements as well as its ritual and sociocultural activities all helped to foster, integrate, and solidify a sense of community. We posit that there exists an important relationship between religion and place, between sacred placemaking and community building and identity, and that sacred places not only express a group’s religious identity, they can also play a significant role in the formation of community.” The authors conclude by stating that although it is possible to worship via the Web and online prayer sites, “physical place continues to be an anchor in the religious lives of immigrants. Memories of past places, the desire to create new place ties, place activities and rituals all play significant roles in building a community in diaspora.”

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What do people do when they just feel like getting out of the house for a while? Cao and her colleagues have determined that when people feel like getting out of the house, attributes of their neighborhood determine if they go for a walk or bike ride. People are more likely to go for an undirected (purely recreational) walk or bike ride when there are more types of businesses within 1,600 meters of their home (even when visiting those businesses is not the primary reason for the walk), when there are more opportunities to socialize, when the neighborhood is seen as more attractive (e.g., appealing appearance of the neighborhood, high level of maintenance in the area, variety in housing styles, large street trees), if there are sidewalks and nearby parks, as well as when there is good public transit in the area. People living on cul-de-sacs are less likely to go on undirected walks.

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Mayer and his colleagues investigated the psychological ramifications of exposure to nature (either through being in a natural setting or viewing nature videos) and their results are consistent with previous related research. They determined that “Exposure to nature increased connectedness to nature, attentional capacity, positive emotions, and ability to reflect on a life problem; these effects are more dramatic for actual nature than for virtual nature.” “Real” nature produces the strongest effects, but “virtual” nature also has many psychological benefits.

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In a recent issue of Nature, Tuan reviews The Power of Place: Geography, Destiny and Globalization’s Rough Landscapes by Harm de Blij. Tuan describes how de Blij uses geographic maps to help readers understand “the resurgence of religious fundamentalism, the leveling of the playing field for the well educated, the roughening of the landscape for the illiterate and poor, the threats of climate change and of nuclear and biological terrorism.” Tuan, in his review, discusses the dual influence of culture and place on human experience, determining that culture (which identifies the resources to be valued and their use) has a more significant influence in this context than place (which provides various resources): “Culture can become a handicap, discouraging people from enriching themselves and developing further, Many people in the periphery bear the burden of culture even more than the burdens of nature and natural habitat. Culture may be a home for them, but easily turns into a cosy prison.” Yi-Fu Tuan. 2008. “There’s No Place Like Home.” Nature, vol. 455, pp. 168-169.  

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Mead and his colleagues assessed factors that encourage stair use and found that:

- Slow elevators do encourage people to use the stairs, even when the elevators are clearly visible. Prominently placed elevators are also convenient for people who cannot climb stairs.

- Elevator use also declines when the elevators are not as prominently placed as stairs, but “hiding” the elevators makes it more difficult for people who can’t climb stairs to move through a building.

- Stairs that can easily be seen from major walkways will be well used.

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Susan Rodiek has developed an instrument to assess staff and resident experience of outdoor spaces at assisted living facilities. Criteria positively related to successful outdoor place design include:

- Visual contact, when people are outdoors, with spaces outside the facility and potentially also with individuals who do not live or work at the facility, such as delivery people

- Ready accessible ways to travel between the main indoor resident space and the outdoors and places to linger (comfortably) near exterior doors

- Opportunities for residents to select from several pleasant outdoor activities (e.g., walking, swimming, games) and locations in which to engage in them<

- Design consistent with abilities of users

- Ability of residents to enjoy “a variety and abundance of nature elements, especially those found to be preferred by older adults, such as flowers, greenery, trees, water, and wildlife.”

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Some people can’t help getting lost. Researchers at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute have uncovered a human neurological condition what prevents people from learning to navigate even through very familiar spaces, such as their homes. Individuals with this condition do not have brain damage or cognitive impairments. They are simply unable to develop cognitive maps.

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Dreams are affected by what people smell as they dream. People who smell pleasant odors (i.e., roses) as they sleep have emotionally positive dreams, while people smelling unpleasant scents, such as rotten eggs, have unpleasant dreams.

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Systolic blood pressure in seniors is significantly reduced when individuals listen either to Mozart or to a binaural recording of ocean waves coupled with a voice encouraging listeners to relax. The decrease in blood pressure is greater, however, with the wave/voice recording than the Mozart recording; the binaural sound relaxes the parasympathetic nervous system.

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Researchers from Wageningen University (The Netherlands) and corporate sponsors are discretely observing diners in a specially outfitted “Restaurant of the Future.” Their goal is to learn how aspects of the physical environment, among other factors, influence diner behavior. Video cameras record diners’ actions – but video is not the only data gathering mechanism. People who have agreed to actively participate in the research program pay for their meals with a card that activates a scale that is flush with the floor they are standing on while paying, for example. Face recognition software analyzes the diners’ levels of enjoyment for particular food/design options. So far, researchers have learned that men’s perceptions of flavor are more likely to be influence by the color of dishes than women’s impressions of flavor. Diners’ spirits are also buoyed by fresh flowers on tables. Research is ongoing.

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In 2007, the Project for Public Spaces (PPS) investigated ways to increase the diversity of people using parks and similar places (“Placemaking in a Pluralistic World: Using Public Spaces to Encourage and Celebrate Social Diversity”). PPS determined that places that serve a range of cultural and socioeconomic groups provide:

- “Safe, spatially adequate territories for everyone [all potential user groups] within the larger space of the overall site.” [PPS quotes Setha Low and her co-authors of Rethinking Urban Parks: Public Space and Cultural Diversity to make this point.]

- Recognition of the cultural traditions, values, and preferences of all potential users in the nearby community

- Opportunities for community members to participate in the planning process

- Direct response to any sort of discrimination present in the community

- “Balance between official and vernacular uses, incorporating many different kinds of activities while simultaneously remaining flexible enough to accommodate values and preferences of different cultural groupings as they evolve over time.”

- Physical proximity of public spaces to members of different ethnic, etc., communities

- Correct definitions of the neighborhood planning unit so that it “it is conceptually broad enough to get individuals to think beyond themselves and their streets, but of a small enough scale to still support the notion of ‘neighborliness’ and encourage collaboration between community planners and stakeholders.”

- Educational and cultural experiences that are potentially interesting to members of different communities.

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The iPhone desk is here! Researchers at Durham University are merging features like those in the iPhone into the top of a school desk. The Technology-Enhanced Learning Research Group at Durham studied how people (students and teachers) interact in classrooms and incorporated what they learned into the design of these new desks. The desks were developed to make students more active participants in the learning process, and the learning process itself more collaborative.

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Music volume influences the drinking of alcohol. When music volume is so high that people cannot talk with each other, they drink more alcohol.

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Martin reports in Nature that architects are increasingly seeking inspiration from natural forms. His review of recent design work indicates that “biological patterns, structures, and mechanisms” are being appropriated for use in design.

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Schweingruber and Wohlstein have reviewed information about crowds included in introductory sociology textbooks and the write-ups they reviewed would not receive full marks – many are inaccurate. These experts on crowding contradict textbook writers by claiming that crowds are not chaotically violent, overly suggestible, irrational, filled with people who feel anonymous, or destructive, for example.

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Music generates an emotional response in people, or does it? Recent research by Zentner, Grandjean, and Scherer indicates that “Emotions were less frequently felt in response to music than they were perceived as expressive properties of the music.”

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Quite a bit of research has shown that individual personality is related to preferred place design. Extraverts, for example, enjoy being in more sensory stimulating environments than introverts do. Rentfrow and his colleagues have uncovered patterns in individual personalities across the United States, which have implications for the design of spaces in areas where individuals are more likely to have particular personality types. More specifically extraversion seems highest in the Great Plains, Midwest, and Southeastern states (highest overall in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Utah) and lowest in the Northwest and the Mid-Atlantic and East Coast States. In addition, openness is high in New England, Mid-Atlantic, and West Coast states and low in the Great Plains, Midwest, and South Central states. Openness “reflects curiosity, intellect, and creativity at the individual level” which also has repercussions for preferred places.

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Buyers valued environmentally responsible features in their homes. A recent poll determined that “Potential home buyers consider ‘green’ building features more important than luxury amenities. . . Almost half of the adults surveyed (49 percent) said features such as solar panels or energy-saving appliances were ‘important,’ compared to just 31 percent who rated luxury amenities important.”

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People who grow up in rural areas have a more positive attitude toward nature than people who grow up in the city. That positive attitude is related to a greater concern with preserving the natural environment.

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We search through physical spaces and our own minds using the same methods. As Hills and his colleagues conclude, “These results strongly suggest that there are general search processes underlying cognition and that these processes are used to search both in external physical space and in internal cognitive space.”

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Architect magazine asked five sets of architects to redesign Starbucks, based on their impressions of how these coffee shop spaces are currently used and what functions they will serve in the future. The architects created a wide range of new places, and all of their responses are available at the web address below. Participating designers were designLAB (Boston), Pentagram Architects (New York), William Massie/Cranbrook Academy of Art (Bloomfield Hills, MI), Studio Works (Los Angeles and Beijing), and STUDIOS (New York).

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It’s easier for humans to look at nature scenes than urban scenes. As Berto and her colleagues state, “Attention restoration theory states that exposure to restorative environments engages fascination or low-effort attention, promoting recovery of adaptive resources and providing the opportunity to rest and reflect.” When photographs high on fascination are seen, they are “viewed without really focusing on particular features.” Nature images are generally more fascinating than urban scenes.

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After surveying the available research literature, Thompson has concluded that the design of the physical work environment influences knowledge worker productivity. Thompson comes to this conclusion even though different researchers have used varying definitions of productivity: “there does not appear to be a universal understanding within business about the term productivity and this deficiency is duplicated in the arena of the office, particularly where the business is far removed from a data processing factory but trades in knowledge the policy division, the marketing team, the business development unit or the innovation squad.” He concludes by stating that “To date, there isn’t a formula to ensure the particular workplace design that guarantees optimum productivity – and quite rightly so. The age of determinism has passed. We must now ask ourselves that occupiers need for their business, rather than expecting organizations to fit into the text book model of space.”

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Mirrors seem to reduce prejudiced behavior. The researchers who observed this effect feel that seeing ourselves in a mirror makes us more likely to follow social norms.

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Social cohesion in neighborhoods has been linked to levels of schizophrenia among residents. Previous research has shown that neighborhood design is related to the social cohesion seen in a community. In a recent study, more new incidences of schizophrenia were seen in neighborhoods with low or high levels of social cohesion.

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Investigations with a variety of stimuli have shown that they are “evaluated less positively if they follow good stimuli than otherwise; stimuli are evaluated more positively if they follow bad stimuli than otherwise.” This research by Parker and his colleagues is the first to assess this phenomenon using musical selections. The contrast effect was also shown to hold with musical selections.

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When people listen to music that they have selected, they experience less pain. The type of music selected and its structure (rhythm, etc.) do not seem to be important; the key issue is that the music is selected by the listener.

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The Center for Health Design has initiated a continuing discussion of noise in hospitals. The group has already discussed the challenge of integrating good acoustics with good infection control: “Sound absorbing acoustical materials tend to be porous. The fact that such materials tend to accumulate dust and become difficult to clean is the challenge that needs to be addressed.” Dealing with porous sound absorbing materials is a long term issue, in the shorter term, “A few environmental modifications can be made quickly and at minimal cost to improve the acoustic environments such as higher-grade acoustical ceiling tiles, different wheels on equipment, foam in retractable door handles, and quieter flooring.”

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It’s hard to determine what is creative – particularly across fields as diverse as science and fine arts. Cropley and Cropley have come up with five criteria that can be used to do just that. They are relevance and effectiveness (which can be assessed in terms of correctness, performance, and appropriateness), generation of novelty (which can be judged based on appropriateness for diagnosis, prescription, prognosis replication, redefinition, combination, incrementation, reconstruction, redirection, reinitiation, and generation), elegance (evaluated in terms of recognition, convincingness, pleasingness, completeness, harmoniousness), and genesis (assessed in terms of foundationality, transferability, germinality, and seminality).

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People can, in general, identify which of their ideas are creative. People who are open to experience do a better job at identifying their most creative ideas than other people do. Openness to experience has been linked to higher levels of creativity.

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Apparently the phrase “cold and lonely” may have some basis in fact. Research by Zhong and Leonardelli has found that people who are socially excluded are literally cold. As the authors state, that their findings “highlight the idea that metaphors are not just language people use to communicate; metaphors are fundamental vessels through which people understand and experience the world around them.”

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Chuang and Chen outline an effective method for evaluating images. Their methodology includes several effective ways to develop perceptual maps. A description of their evaluation tool is available at http://www.ijdesign.org .

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Older and younger adults look at positively and negatively associated images at different times. Younger adults (18-25 years old during study) gaze at positive things while in a good mood and negative things while in a bad mood. Older adults (58-89 years old during study), in contrast, regulate their mood by looking at particular sorts of images. For example, older adults look at positive things when they are in a bad mood.

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Prof Burney Fischer and graduate student Brian Steed of Indiana University have carefully considered how to encourage effective management of street trees (trees along municipal streets). They feel street trees should be recognized as a “common-pool resource.” Common pool resources don’t have “existing rules or clear institutional arrangements to govern their use or protection. Resource sectors identified in this widely expanding area include scientific knowledge, voluntary associations, climate change, community gardens, wikipedias, cultural treasures, plant seeds, and the electronic spectrum.” Common pool resources benefit many citizens but “their use (or abuse) is difficult to control.”

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A study of pre-Baby Boomers/ early Baby Boomers (ages 50-75) living in Portland Oregon indicates that certain neighborhood features are related to increased obesity among residents. The population is more apt to walk for exercise in “neighborhoods with higher mixed-land use, high street connectivity, better access to public transportation, and more green and open space.” Citizens living in neighborhoods with “lower mixed-land use and higher densities of fast-food outlets” were more apt to be obese.

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Fawcett and his colleagues provide details to flesh out the long acknowledged differences in the visual preferences of architects and building users. Both architects and users reviewed images of suburban office buildings that differed in terms of roof shape (pitched or flat), wall material (traditional [brick] or nontraditional [metal or panels]), and architectural character (strong or weak, as judged by architectural experts). Building user preferences were most strongly influenced by roof shape, while architects’’ choices were most strongly influenced by architectural character. Researchers found that “Users main preference was for pitched roofs; they somewhat preferred traditional walling but were indifferent to architectural character. The architects’ main preference was for strong architectural character; they were largely indifferent to roof shape and walling. Therefore, a design with a pitched roof, traditional walling, and a strong architectural character would satisfy the principal preferences of both architects and laypersons.”

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The National Association of Children’s Hospitals and Related Institutions recently released a report, Evidence for Innovation, Transforming Children’s Health through the Physical Environment, that reports, in detail, on the relationship between the physical environment and care outcomes for pediatric patients. The comprehensive report addresses ambient and psychosocial aspects of the pediatric healthcare environment. The report suggests, for example, that designers recognize the difference between the social needs of a young child and an adolescent, “Adolescents require a balance between privacy and intimacy and social interaction and an environment that takes one out of the traditional hospital feel.”

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Kang and Guerin found that some interior design projects are much more likely to be green than others. Specifically: “Designers specializing in child care and educational facilities most often used sustainable interior design practices. Other specialties, in descending order, were hospitality/entertainment, financial institutions, health care, government/institutional, corporate/office, residential, and retail design.”