“First we shape our buildings, and then our buildings shape us.”
If you’re one of those people who has a particular spot in the library, or moves their furniture around five times before settling on a layout (not me, I promise) — the refrain above by Winston Churchill will feel all too familiar. In a post-pandemic world too, our relationship to interior and exterior aesthetics has been magnified, with more focus than ever on maximising the space we use to eat, sleep, work, cry, laugh, and do just about everything. The fact is though, whether you’re someone who’ll spend two hours hunting for the perfect vase or really couldn’t care less about getting the cosy nook of the aeroplane window seat, the space we occupy has always had a major impact on our psychological behaviour.
What do I mean by ‘space’? Well, anything you can think of that affects the design and feel of your environment. Derivatives like population, interior design, architecture, and even the weather (the green screen encapsulating everything else, if you will) are points that come into play. The formal study of environmental psychology has only been around for the last few decades, approximately since the 1960s — and can be positively implemented to maximise the efficiency of our spaces and the well-being of its users. Factors like lighting, configuration, sound, colours, textures etc, all inform the identity of the space we’re in — and to an extent — how we feel inside it.
As outlined by Dr. Sergio Altomonte, architect and associate professor at Nottingham University — “buildings and urban spaces should be designed first and foremost around their occupants. The importance of architecture as a trigger to physical, physiological and psychological wellbeing is nowadays becoming a topic of significant relevance.” This responsibility, when it comes to urban space, lies with the architect. One pioneering study, imitated the environment of city dwellers, and conditions of overcrowding, using a sample of rats. The experiment, begun in 1958 by American ethologist John Calhoun, created a controversial behavioral analogy between the rat’s behavior and inhabitation in high-rise building developments in the US.
The link between space and mental health is one that has been well-documented — from the healthcare industry to urban cities. Historian Chloe Green sums up the current trend of research in conjunction with ancient wisdom:
“Although the bond between interior design and our emotions has gained much attention in the last decade, this form of environmental psychology exists for thousands of years now — the Indian Vastu Shastra, the Chinese Feng Shui, etc. Because of the rise of neuroscience, scientists are doing plenty of research on this topic and finding the most incredible results. They have shown the ability of interior design elements to evoke positive or negative emotional responses in people. These findings open the door to design spaces that consciously manipulate decorative elements with the goal of encouraging creativity, peace and happiness […] With all that said, it should not surprise us that interior designers are “stealing” some knowledge from psychology to improve emotional impacts of the space.”
Nowadays, mass Build-To-Rent housing developments like those imitated in Calhoun’s study have numerous benefits, one of which is the utilisation of space in a stylish, healthy manner. Most of your environmental day-to-day surroundings (like your neighbourhood, place of work) aren’t things necessarily in your control. You didn’t design the block of flats you’re paying rent towards, the house you moved into might not have been built from scratch according to your preferred layout, and so on and so forth. The weather? The British would’ve found a way to change that one long ago if they could.
But while many aspects of our ‘space’ may be out of our control, how do we go about changing what we can control for the better? There’s a whole array of approaches you can implement, or think about undertaking. From incorporating biophilic design (aka green space), considering chromotherapy, and embracing minimalism (hello Marie Kondo) — there are multiple ways to try and ensure that you shape your space just as much as, or more than, it shapes you.