Environmental Psychology Research
‘...Designers are generally unaware of the effects that their inventions have on the brain, and therefore take no responsibility of this role is deeply worrying. The world of design is like a highway, where each and every driver is asleep at the wheel.’ HERD, 9(2), p.163.
We are not the clichéd designers who see inspiration in a crumpled napkin to develop new ideas. Our ideas are generated first and foremost with a clear picture of a building’s users; we want to provide people with what they need, enable them to get what they want and inspire them to feel valued and valuable. This approach has been shown to bring out the best in people and even improve their health. This doesn’t mean that designs are dull. On the contrary, it usually means they are exciting in unusual ways. It may even mean a building will look like a crumpled napkin, but ‘formalism’ is never the intention, even if it is the product. When we design, it’s always collaborating with our clients and stakeholders in order to put people first.
We live in our architectural world like a fish lives in water. Our buildings, our urban landscapes, our gardens, farms, boots, saddles and walking trails are all designed by humans for humans. This isn’t only because we like flat surfaces to walk on and windows to cut out a wintery chill. It’s because the environment around us is an extension of our brains: it extends our cognitive processes into increasingly public and shared experiences and memories as surely as neurones reach into our personal life-worlds. The world around us determines so much about how we feel, what we think and what we do. It motivates us, instructs us and it reflects back a sense of who we are as people. This simple fact puts a huge onus on designers as the conceivers and creatures of our collective consciousness.
Some of our research on Environmental Psychology
Golembiewski, J. (2015). "Making things happen: how the environment triggers action." XD Experience Design Journal 1(2): 10-13.
Golembiewski, J. (2014). "Introducing the concept of reflexive and automatic violence: a function of aberrant perceptual inhibition." Archives of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy 16(4): 5-13.
Golembiewski, J. (2013). "Determinism and desire: Some neurological processes in perceiving the design object." International Journal of Design in Society 6(3): 23-36.
