Have you ever walked into a room and immediately thought, “This feels amazing!” Or, “I don’t like this,” with the ‘this’ not being anything in particular, just a feeling?

Even though we Americans spend a lot (A LOT!) of time inside buildings (90% of our time, on average), we struggle to articulate the reasons why buildings/spaces make us feel the way they do.

Part of this difficulty comes from the fact that talking about space is not a big cultural priority here. Sure, we watch HGTV shows and renovate the kitchen. But, as a culture, we tend to focus on stuff—which type of marble to use on a countertop, what color to paint the wall. These choices are usually made based on what is popular and available. We rarely talk about how these materials make us feel.

Nevertheless, we are influenced by our surroundings on a subconscious level. Inside a building, natural light, views, proportion, ease-of-use, acoustics, haptics, and site all have an impact on how we feel.

I challenge you, after you read this post, to stop and spend a moment paying attention to the next building you enter. Think through the above categories and try to identify how successfully they have been engaged with in the building design. Consider how they make you feel, and if your feelings would change if they had been addressed more intentionally.

Why should we pay attention? Because how we experience our environment affects us physiologically and psychologically. Our mood, productivity, sense of joy and health are all impacted in very real ways by the spaces we inhabit.

Light affects our cognitive performance as well as our mood. Solar orientation and the number and location of glazing units (windows and doors with glass) in a building, when carefully considered, creates an atmosphere that is energizing and positive. We feel more awake, happy, and productive in environments that are well-lit by natural light.

Views to nature also impact us deeply; in architecture, we call this phenomenon Biophilia—the human desire and instinct to connect with nature. “Biophilia can boost our immune systems, support mental and emotional health, create social connections and aid physical recovery. In fact, bringing in aspects of biophilic design can also help reduce anxiety, improve cognitive performance and make for a better night's sleep.” In addition to views, Biophilia can also be used to inform material choices. Materials that have natural variegation (such as wood) are more enticing and stimulating to our brains.

Proportion affects how spaces feel. If a room is too narrow we can feel squeezed. If ceilings are too low we feel pressed down. If a room is cavernous we lack the feeling of warmth and shelter we seek in our homes. Frank Lloyd Wright famously developed the concept of ‘prospect and refuge’ which describes a primal need to feel cozy and sheltered in a home (refuge) while also being able to see what is going on outside without being seen (prospect). He used spatial techniques to affect how people feel inside his building designs. Alvar Aalto, a famous Finnish architect, studied human proportion and designed his buildings to closely fit the human scale. Everybody who enters an Alvar Aalto building feels good.

Ease-of-use impacts our experiences with buildings. Imagine a bank of light switches, but none of them turn on the light overhead. Imagine a home in which a hallway leads to a hallway leads to stairs leads to a hallway making you feel like you are in a rabbit warren. Imagine a dishwasher that blocks drawers whenever it opens. These irritations add up. And they are unnecessary. Proper planning, attention, and documentation during design and construction eliminates these issues.

An often overlooked but still essential consideration in good-feeling design is acoustics. Have you ever been to a restaurant and been unable to hear the conversation at your table? Have you lived in an apartment below neighbors who sound like they are wearing cement blocks on their feet? We don’t often identify noise as a source of irritation inside a building, but it impacts our experience. And it is unnecessary. These issues can be dramatically reduced or even eliminated by appropriate proportions and material assemblies.

Another overlooked aspect of experience is touch. In architecture we call this haptics. As human beings we have a very sophisticated sense of touch. We have incredibly dextrous hands with a high degree of sensitivity; touch is an important part of how we understand our environment. In buildings, the surfaces we encounter don’t even need to be physically touched to be experienced—we have a catalogue of touch experiences in our memory that plays out in physical space. We don’t need to sit on a wood floor to know how a wood floor feels, so when we encounter a wood floor we feel it not only through our shoes but also in our body-memory.

Lastly, the relationship to the site is important. A home that is at odds with its site undermines the effort put into making the design of the home beautiful. Many cookie-cutter developments suffer from a lack of regard for the site; the ground is flattened, all trees and vegetation razed. Variation in topography and vegetation attracts our eyes and engages our minds. We have a physiological response to our environment, with varied environments impacting us more positively and more deeply. Careful site planning when building new or adding an addition can enrich this relationship.

At Charlton Architecture, we design to optimize experience. Our projects are highly customized, dovetailing experiential goals with pragmatic ones.

We help our clients to articulate their experiential goals, and to understand how those goals can be manifested spatially. We introduce new and different ways of maximizing these experiences while maintaining balance and addressing real-world constraints. We integrate sustainable choices and seek opportunities for joy.

Architectural design is many things. It is art, it is technique, it is science. It touches all aspects of life, and because of this, we believe, demands a high degree of responsibility—which means paying attention to how buildings affect our experiences. It is rewarding working with clients to identify meaning because it results in a much more fun and healthy space for them.

Architecture is for living.

For the connection between mental health and biophilia: https://www.cignaglobal.com/blog/body-mind/connection-with-nature-and-biophilia-help-mental-wellbeing