environmental psychology in healthy buildings
We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us - Sir Winston Churchill, 1943
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We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us - Sir Winston Churchill, 1943 〰️
healthy buildings, sustainability and environmental psychology
As healthy building consultants, we combine concern for both physical and mental wellbeing of building occupants with a parallel effort to minimize environmental impact.
These two concepts of sustainable, green buildings and healthy buildings designed with occupant wellbeing in mind, are therefore in one sense at least operating at two different scales.
In the case of the former, the building is part of an increasingly delicate natural ecosystem that has no start or end point as such, meaning a real estate developer, landlord or tenant is assuming responsibility for their contribution to something urgent yet ultimately global in scope - the health of our planet and the environmental impact legacy we will pass on to future generations.
healthy building strategies
Healthy building strategies are comparatively small-scale and hyper local, i.e. they are more immediately connected to the activities going on within a specific building or space. As such, there is a tangible connection between an individual occupant and their experience of the building they are in.
Partly this is about physical elements such as Indoor air Quality, for example, or Active Design features that encourage movement, yet a large slice of it is connected to environmental psychology.
What is environmental psychology and how does it impact a healthy building?
Environmental psychology is formally defined as “the interaction between humans and the surrounding environment… how environment influences us but we also influence the environment” (ref)).
Environmental psychology is a branch of psychology that explores the relationship between humans and the world around us. It is concerned with the influence of natural and built environment on how we feel, think, and behave (ref).
An important part of environmental psychology is recognizing the positive and negative effects any given space can have: for example, the impact of environmental stressors like noise and crowding or conversely the restorative effect of incorporating nature.
cognitive vs environmental
This topic can further be broken down into two subcategories:
cognitive/physiological/behavioral aspects
more environmentally conscious, conservation aspects
The cognitive/ behavioral/ physiological part makes use of methods such as restoration (mood-improvement), wayfinding (how people find their way in new places, place attachment (what are physical things that make people get attached to certain place), etc.
The conservation side focuses more on the relationships between people and the natural world as well as putting emphasis on how society treats our surrounding environment and preserves nature-based connections.
Before getting into what environmental differences can affect the mind and mental wellbeing for occupants in a building, it is important to have a general understanding of how surroundings can positively or negatively impact health.
For more on what constitutes a healthy building see our dedicated article here.
How can a building affect our health?
When doing research on how exactly the body reacts to different nature-made vs. man-made environments, most ideas circle back to the idea of circadian rhythm and its impact.
Circadian rhythm is an internal clock that helps signal different processes within the body according to time of day. This one biological process can have drastic effects on many other processes such as hormone production and release; motivational drives on cognition, etc.
Therefore, when utilizing biophilic design as a healthy building strategy for example, it is important to keep circadian rhythm in mind.
WELL Healthy Building standard - restorative spaces in healthy buildings
The International WELL Building Institute has a set of recommended standards for integrating natural components into workspace environments and other real estate projects as a way to protect the mental wellbeing of occupants.
A set-piece interior space focusing on mental wellbeing in particular is often called a restorative space, or a recharge room. These concepts typically make use of a combination of:
wellness lighting (dimmable light levels, Circadian lighting intensities in tune with our 24 hour internal clock)
sound wellness (water features, nature sounds, sound masking strategies)
thermal comfort (sun-exposed outdoor spaces or carefully shaded areas, comfortable indoor temperatures)
comfortable seating arrangements (movable light weight chairs, cushions, mats)
nature and biophilic design (calming natural colors, textures and plants)
visual privacy, in order to complete internal practices such as prayers, meditation or a power nap :)
The role of other people in environmental psychology
This also applies to studying interpersonal relationships with environment taken into consideration. Looking into things like privacy, personal space, and having a sense of ownership for a space while also keeping in mind questions like: “how can people learn to better navigate the environment they are in,” and “why are certain environments preferred over others?”
Eastern Buddhist traditions of mental wellbeing
An interesting comparison study from the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies explored connections from Buddhist teachings to Western Psychology. (https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2006-12925-003 )
Although it is useful to keep in mind the surrounding environment’s effect on mental health, both western and Buddhist teachings believe that happiness derived from internal, mental training lasts longer than that from external sources, such as the built environments we spend our days in, such as an office, home, school or gym.
Buddhists believe that a lack of overall mental wellbeing is a sign of internal imbalances, requiring focused attention through meditation practices and so on in order to integrate these ‘issues’ whatever they may be into our psyche.
Equally, for Buddhist practitioners, happiness itself can be a fundamentally ephemeral or at the very least fluctuating experience for most of us, unless we are ‘enlightened’ and have found our own internal happiness, rather than chasing after external sources of happiness.
For example, Buddhist teachings stress the importance of mental balance with a fourfold theory of combining conative balance, attentional balance, cognitive balance and affective balance. Things like anxiety, depression, etc are thought to result from an unbalanced mind while a healthy, uninjured mind is thought to be better prepared to deal with stresses.
Buddhist principles for mental wellbeing
Conative Balance refers to the ability that allows to set intention; having set goals increases motivation and commitment than desire alone while stressing the importance of realistic expectations and having clear goals as a way to predict happiness.
Attentional Balance is the development of sustained attention for optimal performance. This can be applied with mindful breathing as a sense of focus, the theory of flow – being involved in an activity for its own sake. Mindfulness practices such as meditation are also a key component in developing this skill, for example.
Cognitive Balance implies being calmly and clearly present; engaging in the world without making assumptions or misleading ideas. Being present in the moment, without judgement in other words. This can be seen through mindfulness training and stress-reduction that results in not getting caught up in expectations.
Affective Balance is having a clear and cohesive mix of the other three.
Summary on environmental psychology in the built environment
The essence of environment psychology has to do with the environment, yes but mainly relies on healthy minds as the goal and environmental factors as a stepping-stone to get there. While there are many techniques that can be included in design, there is no “one” answer.
Everything comes down to asking the question: “how will this affect my mentality?” and the answer to that, varies according to the context of each building or interior space situations.