Our physical environments have a much larger effect on people than ever imagined – the environment genuinely affects our wellbeing – especially when we’re feeling low for physical, mental or emotional reasons. This effect is so critical that it is the single biggest known factor in severe mental illness – more even than genetics.

Humans have customised their homes since before we evolved to homosapiens-sapiens and it’s possible that the need to do so is actually a subconscious attempt to create ideal living environments. 

Recent science has found a reason for this: our physical environments have a huge psychological effect on people. The environment genuinely affects our wellbeing – especially when we’re feeling low for physical, mental or emotional reasons. This effect is so critical that it is the single biggest known factor in mental illness – more even than genetics.

At Psychological Design, we know a lot about this science because Dr. Golembiewski (the lead architect) is at the forefront of this research, having led the research on the subject around the world.  As a result, we always reach far further than the prosaic efforts of most architects. We’re not only concerned by rules and Council permissions (as important as they are) but aim to provide the best architecture for the people who will be using it – to really push for better wellbeing, both physically and mentally. 

At Psychological Design we are concerned (and informed) about how environments affect our brains and our health generally.  But other aspects of our lives are also affected by good (or bad) design: creativity, learning ability, human relations and even happiness levels can all benefit from better physical environments. 

Psychological Design is a residential architecture firm that is uniquely placed to assess how our environments affect people, especially for children and people who are otherwise psychically and mentally vulnerable. Often healthy people don’t care, but remember that everyone gets ill sometimes, and even physical injuries benefit from good design. But leaving vulnerabilities aside, environmental design is a great way to help prevent problems and even to assist with the natural process of health building, learning and recovery. 

We include and work closely with homeowners, informing them along the way so the home-owners themselves can validly claim to be co-designers. They must, after all, they’re the best-placed to say what makes them feel good. Home-owners shouldn’t take this for granted: the growing complexity and expertise needed to design and build tends to side-line the home-owner. Effectively the home-owners are too frequently turned into voyeurs (and bank-rollers) of their own projects. Working with Psychological Design as your architects is working as part of a team of experts, where you as the homeowner are respected as the greatest expert in your own life.