nature scenes through windows or in realistic images helps us restock our levels of mental energy after we’ve depleted them by concentrating for a while, whether on writing code, deciphering the directions for a complicated handicraft project, or something else. They also help us feel less stressed. Nature views help us feel calmer, boost our cognitive performance, and make us more likely to get along better with others, for example. Psychology-wise, the “best” scenes look as if we could step into them and seem to extend far into the distance. We enjoy seeing rolling hills, for example, and clumps of trees that we might, if we are nimble and quick enough, scamper up to escape trouble. Green is key; arid landscapes are not desirable, at least psychologically, and neither are jungles. If you are building a home or office or landscaping one, you can create these sorts of views through your windows. If you’re not going to be building or landscaping, add some art or photographs of nature, as they’ll also work well.
Green is key.
Looking at water is particularly good for de-stressing and restocking our mental resources and energy levels. “Manmade” water, say a fountain with gently moving water, works as well as a stream. The effort of adding a fountain to an enclosed courtyard without plants, or to a desktop, is quickly earned back via pleasant feelings.
All the views we have in a space aren’t outdoors, and all interior views are definitely not created equal. The best ones are those in which we have our backs against something that seems to protect us (such as a wall, a high-backed chair, or a sturdy plant) and where we have a view out over the world around us. People in a conversation niche with a built-in bench tucked into a workplace hallway have this sort of view. Someone perched on a window seat does, too. The first seats taken in seat-yourself restaurants are in booths and have a view of the restaurant’s entry. This fondness for protected seats with a view seems tied to our evolutionary past—at one time when our species was young, perches on tree branches high above the ground may have provided the situational awareness we needed to survive.
For practical and aesthetic reasons, not all of the furniture in your home should be placed against the walls. Putting all of the furniture against the walls restricts how you can use a space and can mean that people trying to talk to each other find themselves at uncomfortable distances. So put something solid behind seats that “float” in the middle of a room, because their backs are more than a couple of feet from walls. You have a range of options for that “protective” element, but the key is to keep any of those hypothetical rear-approaching evildoers about an arm’s length away—a credenza behind a couch does that. Try to place your furniture so that as few seated people as possible have their backs to hallways or walkways.
Being able to see a long way makes us feel comfortable in our homes.
In nature, if we feel safe, we can see far into the distance, and being able to see a long way makes us feel comfortable in our homes. Try to position some seats in your home so that people sitting in them can see from one room into the next, and, if possible, through a window to see outside by carefully positioning furniture and opportunistically looking for spaces in your homes with views. Having views through your home is possible, even if you’re not living in an open plan. Precisely placing some chairs enables people to have long views through a home even if there are plenty of walls. Some PlaceTypes are more comfortable when they have more audio and visual separation from others; if it turns out you’re in one of those groups, position screens or install doors so you have some control over others’ long views of you.
Things move in nature, but when something moves inside most of the places we design, generally, it’s on its way to crashing to the floor. A mobile, wall hanging, or window curtain that drifts in a gentle air-conditioning or heating current near the ceiling adds comforting motion to a space; it’s reminiscent of breezes moving through long-ago meadows on wonderful sunny days. If the air-conditioning or heating currents in your home make you think more of hurricanes than drifting butterflies, reposition mobiles or flex sculptures etc. so they move in a window draft or the current of air behind someone walking through an area instead. Daylight in a space will naturally create a sense of movement as shadows change position during the day.
Personality fine-tunes how we respond to seeing other people, but it’s generally true that seeing other humans revs us up. We needed to work together to survive long ago, and that early work was often physically demanding. Our nervous systems continue to respond accordingly, boosting our energy level when we see others, as if after their appearance we’ll soon be chasing prey or lifting boulders. If you’re creating a public sort of space that’ll be visited by people with all sorts of personality profiles, build in some screens—things that people cannot see through—to improve visitors’ experiences.
Sensory Experiences
Colors on Surfaces
Often, fears of making a mistake lead people to paint their walls white or beige and select “safe” colors for furniture, for example, browns that won’t show dirt or wear. Choosing colors without information about the psychological consequences of selections made can indeed be intimidating. Different PlaceTypes are supported particularly well by certain color schemes, as described in individual PlaceType write-ups; we will review some general information about color here.
Homeowners have the freedom to paint interior walls whatever colors they choose; all are free to pick the colors that appear on their furniture, rugs, carpets, etc.
The first thing to know about color is that it has three elements: hue, saturation, and brightness.
•A hue is a set of wavelengths we categorize into the same group. Red is a hue, and so are orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. There are multiple shades of red and orange, for example. Cultures assign meanings to hues, and those associations make some hues good choices for some spaces and not so good options in others.
•Saturation is how pure a color is. Emerald green is more saturated than sage green, and pumpkin oranges are more saturated than smoky shades of orange. Colors that are less saturated seem a little grayer than saturated ones.
•Brightness is how much white seems to be mixed into a color—you could think of brightness as roughly synonymous with lightness. Colors that are brighter have more white mixed into them, so baby blue is lighter than a sapphire blue.
In North America, some of the associations we have to hues are:
•Blue is linked to trustworthiness, competence, and dependability, so if you are a consultant who will participate in video conference calls from your at-home desk, paint the wall that will be seen as you speak blue. Blue is also linked more strongly with environmental responsibility than any other color.
•Yellow is simultaneously associated with the sun and with cowardice and treachery.
•Orange is linked to being a good value.
•Green is a shade we associate with nature, environmental responsibility, and rebirth (think: spring).
•White is a color that we generally link to being modern as well as to cleanliness, purity, and honesty.
•Purple is tied to sophistication.
•Black is linked to power, high cost, sophistication, formality, and death.
•Brown is associated with ruggedness.
Research has tied seeing certain hues to very particular psychological
