RDC Blog

The population is getting heavier. Recent research indicates that a third of US hospital patients weigh more than 350 pounds and that 65% of the US population is overweight or obese. Designers of public spaces, such as healthcare facilities, must insure that the appropriate sorts of seating, with comfortable seat widths and back pitches, are provided for all space users. They must also make sure that features of the space design, such as doorway widths, are easy for larger individuals to use.

http://www.healthcaredesignmagazine.com/BariatricFurniture

Vacant lots can benefit the humans living around them, according to a recent report by the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE). CABE recommends “low-key” programs for vacant lots that “reduce negative and anti-social land uses.” Potential interventions include providing public access to these spaces (while minimizing vehicular access), planting easy to grow native plants in the spaces, and sponsoring temporary artworks in vacant lots. These vacant spaces can also be used for commercial purposes: “There is a long tradition of beekeepers producing some of their best honey from the flowers on the vacant urban land.”

Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment. 2008. “Public Space Lessons: Lands in Limbo: Making the Best Use of Vacant Urban Spaces.” http://www.cabe.org.uk

The UK’s Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) has prepared an insightful report profiling ways that public spaces can be designed to accommodate global warming. As CABE states “Thoughtfully designed public spaces offer urban areas their best opportunities to adapt, offering water storage, cooling and carbon absorption.” Case studies from across the planet are used to illustrate the CABE’s point that “Spaces that are softer, greener, more organic and natural will store water and are critical to modifying urban temperatures. Green spaces with a generous planting of trees link to form a network offering cooler, cleaner air.”

Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment. 2008. “Public Space Lessons: Adapting Public Space to Climate Change.” http://www.cabe.org.uk

Humans have a different emotional reaction to the same piece of music when it is played by a human being and when it is played by a computer. When music is played by a human being, our emotional response to it is stronger than when it is played by a computer, although the computer rendition does influence listeners psychologically.

Stefan Koelsch, Simone Kilches, Nikolaus Steinbeis, Stefanie Schelinski. 2008. “Effects of Unexpected Chords and of Performer’s Expression on Brain Responses and Electrodermal Activity.” PLoS ONE, vol. 3, no. 7, http://www.plosone.org.

Closed circuit surveillance cameras may make the areas filmed more pleasant places to be. Recent research has shown that when people are aware that they are being filmed, they are more likely to help other people who need assistance doing straightforward tasks, such as picking up dropped items. Helping behavior is most likely to occur when people think that camera feeds are being monitored.

Thomas van Rompay, Dorette Vonk, and Marieke Fransen. 2008. “The Eye of the Camera: Effects of Security Cameras on Prosocial Behavior.” Environment and Behavior, in press.

Perceptions of lighting quality in their open plan offices influence workers’ opinions about their work lives. Veitch and her colleagues determined that “Combined results from the two statistical approaches show that people who perceived their office lighting as being of higher quality rated the space as more attractive, reported more pleasant mood, and showed greater well-being at the end of the day.” Lighting quality is related to the amount of light that falls on relevant surfaces, the level of glare present, and the appearance of a space, in general.

J. Veitch, G. Newsham, P. Boyce, and C. Jones. 2008. “Lighting Appraisal, Well-Being and Performance in Open-Plan Offices: A Linked Mechanisms Approach.” Lighting Research and Technology, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 133-151.

Research recently completed in the United Kingdom shows that being "green" is becoming the social norm. Researchers at the UK’s Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs found that only 30% of those surveyed felt that “being green is an alternative lifestyle, it’s not for the majority.” Forty-four percent of those surveyed disagreed with the statement.

“Attitudes to the Environment.” 2008. The Psychologist, vol. 21, no. 1, p. 2, http://www.bps.org.uk.

People from Eastern and Western cultures make different spatial judgments. Spatial judgments relate to line choices at supermarkets and selecting travel routes, for example. Research has determined that (as reported in an article related press release): “Independent thinkers [more probably from Western cultures] are more likely to misjudge distance when they need to take multiple features into account (like how winding a road is). Interdependent things [more probably from Eastern cultures] are less likely to make distance errors but more prone to other kinds of spatial errors (such as when intersecting lines on a map make one side of the line appear longer than the other). . . .Our data indicate that individuals with an independent (vs. interdependent self-construal are more likely to pay attention to only the focal aspects of stimuli and to ignore the context and background information in forming spatial judgments, resulting in biases. In contrast, interdependents are capable of going beyond the most salient dimension (e.g., direct distance) and incorporating other information (e.g., line configuration) in their judgments, leading to greater accuracy in these tasks.”

Aradhna Krishna, Rongrong Zhou, and Shi Zhang. 2008. “The Effect of Self-Construal on Spatial Judgments.” Journal of Consumer Research, in press.

Kuna and his fellow researchers have recently collected additional information indicating that when people are speaking different languages, they behave differently. They report that “Language can be a cue that activates different culture-specific frames [behaviors]. The researchers worked with a group of bicultural Hispanic women and found that ‘The women classified themselves as more assertive when they spoke Spanish than when they spoke English . . .in the Spanish-;language sessions, informants perceived females as more self-sufficient and extroverted.’” The fact that mental outlook can vary based on the language being spoken has implications for the design of places that will be used by individuals who will speak different languages at different times.

David Kuna, Torsten Ringberg, and Laura Peracchio. 2008. “One Individual, Two Identities: Frame-Switching Among Biculturals.” Journal of Consumer Research, in press.