Story at a glance:
- Many emotional health strategies are rooted in biophilia, or the idea that nature is just as important as food and water to ensuring a healthy, meaningful existence.
- Daylighting and inclusion of indoor vegetation are two tried and true strategies for improving emotional health.
- Providing occupants with direct access to the outdoors is one of the most impactful strategies for improving emotional health and well-being.
It has been said that the average American spends 90% of their time indoors.
This realization has, in recent years, led to an explosion of wellness real estate projects, many of which go to great lengths to create built environments that promote not just physical health, but emotional health as well.
In this article we explore 10 emotional health strategies to improve design for well-being.
1. Maximize Daylighting
KLA’s UniQuad Poly Wall System brings light into the Maryland Heights Community Center. Photo courtesy of Kingspan Light + Air
In architecture daylighting refers to the practice of using natural sunlight—as opposed to electric light—to illuminate the interior of a building. There are obvious environmental benefits that come with daylighting, but natural lighting also has a positive effect on both physical and mental health.
“Light is a stimulant of our biological system that drives physiological change, constantly signaling to our bodies when to produce chemicals, initiate functions, and even clean our brains of the day’s plaque,” Jennifer Kirkpatrick, director of sales at American Lighting, previously wrote for gb&dPRO.
This is because daylight is the single most important factor when it comes to regulating the body’s circadian rhythm—or those biological functions that repeat each 24-hour cycle.
“By exposing your body to daylight throughout the day, your healthy human circadian rhythm will have a significant role in regulating your sleep-wake cycle and have a positive influence on your eating habits and digestion, body temperature, hormone release, and other important bodily functions,” Neall Digert, vice president of innovation and market development at Kingspan Light + Air, previously wrote for gb&dPRO.
Many mood disorders—like depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder—are linked in part to disruptions in one’s circadian clock-controlled responses like sleep and cortisol secretion.
Maximizing exposure to daylight helps keep these responses in check and:
- reduces instances of daytime fatigue
- increases cognitive function, and
- generally improves mood overall.
Studies show regular exposure to natural sunlight also helps the human brain produce serotonin, a hormone that improves mood by alleviating feelings of stress and anxiety. This makes sunlight an important part of the treatment process for managing—or even preventing—the onset of depression and seasonal-affective disorder.
2. Proper Sound Attenuation
Acoustic clouds clustered over conversation spaces ensure sound doesn’t fill up the rest of the space at Optiv in Denver, designed by Interior Architects. Photo by James Florio
Effective sound attenuation is also crucial to the mental wellness of a building’s occupants. Sound attenuation describes the process by which sound waves lose energy as they travel through the air, either by way of absorption, reflection, or scattering.
Proper sound attenuation measures are particularly important in dense urban areas where anthropogenic outside noise is a nigh-constant facet of everyday life. This is because a growing body of research suggests that regular exposure to such noise—and especially noise produced by traffic and industrial sources—can potentially affect the central nervous system, increasing one’s susceptibility to anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, and other mental health conditions.
To help prevent exterior noise intrusion, architects should specify high-performance sound insulation for building envelopes and ensure that a high degree of air-sealing—especially around windows—is achieved to prevent sound infiltration through gaps and cracks. Installing double- or triple-pane windows can also help prevent unwanted outside sounds from entering a building’s interior.
Internally generated noise can also be a source of dissatisfaction and frustration for occupants as well, especially in large multifamily residential projects, offices, and educational facilities. Poor sound attenuation and insulation in wall and floor assemblies, for example, can allow impact noise like footsteps and airborne noise—such as voices or music—to travel between rooms and floors, creating distractions and potentially increasing stress due to a lack of perceived privacy.
Mitigating interior noise pollution can be achieved in part through acoustic insulation and infill, but also involves solutions like sound absorption panels, acoustic partitions, acoustic baffles, and acoustic clouds.
“Installing acoustic products like baffles or acoustic clouds is the least intrusive form of sound attenuation you can install, as it does not affect the total square footage of a space,” Brice Corder, project development and brand manager for Arktura, wrote in a previous gb&dPRO article. “It is easiest to control sound dispersion and manipulation vertically from a purely auditory standpoint.”
Arktura is one of the foremost manufacturers of innovative architectural systems and custom design solutions, including many of the acoustic design strategies mentioned above. “From an acoustic performance perspective, our mission here at Arktura is to control noise and contribute to the comfort and wellness of our clients,” Moti Tavassoli, product designer at Arktura, previously told gb&d.
3. Use of Natural Materials & Textiles
The interior walls of this library were left exposed initially in an effort to reduce material costs; the end result is a warm and inviting space that highlights one of Washington’s greatest resources.. Photo by Doug Scott
Building with natural materials like wood, bamboo, and stone and leaving those materials exposed can help improve occupant well-being and foster a deeper connection to nature.
“The use of a natural material stimulates an innate and positive biophilic response in building occupants,” Scott Mooney, senior assistant at SRG Partnership, wrote in a previous gb&d article.
This is especially true of exposed timber, a material often lauded for its warm, inviting appearance. A recent study conducted by researchers at the National Resources Institute Finland and Tampere University in Finland adds weight to this after it found that participants showed lower levels of anxiety and fewer negative emotions when asked to perform a task in a wooden room than when asked to perform the same task in a control room without exposed timber.
Choosing furnishings that utilize natural fabrics, fibers, and textures also provide an intrinsic link to the outdoors and may reduce feelings of stress and anxiety that come with sensory discomfort. Materials like sheep’s wool, flax, jute, linen, and cotton all possess am organic rawness that, when used to fashion rugs, tapestries, and furniture upholstery, helps create calm and relaxing indoor environments that are both comfortable and welcoming.
4. Photography, Art, and Color
Designtex’s Joy Collection is a combination of durable, comfortable, and easy-to-maintain materials ready to help create environments that are functional, beautiful, and uplifting. This bench comes to life with Joy’s Wonder style. Photo courtesy of Designtex
While views of nature may be ideal, they aren’t always available. Fortunately high-quality photographic prints of natural scenery and landscapes can be an effective stand-in for the real thing. This is because the simple act of observing nature or natural landscapes, whether real or represented in another medium, is good for the mind and body. Even if one can’t physically be outdoors, viewing natural scenery through photographs can reduce feelings of stress and anxiety, lowering cortisol levels, increasing parasympathetic nervous system activity, and improving concentration.
In the same vein, other artistic mediums like paintings, sculptures, murals, and wall coverings can have a positive impact on how occupants experience a space by providing both emotional and intellectual stimulation. Research into neuroaesthetics—that is, the study of art, music, and other objects that might produce aesthetic judgements—even suggests that color and art can be used to invoke specific feelings.
Designtex—a leading designer and manufacturer of applied materials for the built environment—used neuroaesthetic principles as the driving force for their Joy Collection of woven high performance textiles, which looks to evoke feelings of happiness and stimulate the brain’s pleasure centers.
“We made design interventions that support the research—like organic forms and an abundance of patterns that bring a more joyful, inviting, and uplifting atmosphere,” Sara Balderi, executive director of design at Designtex, told gb&d in a previous article. “We looked at color psychology, visual harmony, attention to detail, and all these things we learned from neuroaesthetics and applied them to every step in the design process.”
And while the principles of neuroaesthetics can be implemented anywhere, they are especially promising in health care settings. “In the health care environment I think artwork affects people a little differently than it does maybe in a museum setting,” Ellen Rudolph, curator and senior director of the Cleveland Clinic Art Collection, previously told gb&d. “Often people are in a state of heightened anxiety, or they have a lot of time to pass; to be able to provide artwork that can help alleviate some of that anxiety, to help people feel less alone or offer a kind of escape or respite is an enormous privilege.”
5. Include Plants & Vegetation
Looking at plants can help to lower the body’s cortisol (the hormone that regulates stress) levels, according to research conducted by experts at the Texas A&M Department of Horticultural Sciences. Because they are capable of reducing stress, indoor plants have the potential to combat anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders, leading to improved mood and greater life satisfaction.
Data suggests that simply being in the same room as potted plants is enough to begin lowering stress levels. Actively interacting with indoor plants—e.g. watering, pruning, transplanting, et cetera—can also help to lower one’s heart rate and blood pressure. The positive impact of plants on mental health is so great, in fact, that some doctors in the UK have taken to prescribing houseplants as a supplementary means of managing anxiety, depression, and loneliness.
6. Use Organic Shapes & Forms
The soft, undulating waves of Atmosphera Analog 3D finished in Arktura’s premium wood texture are seen here at Mead Johnson in Chicago, designed by Partners By Design. Photo by Tom Harris Architectural Photography
Organic geometries are reminiscent of those commonly found in nature, and as such, are typically imperfect and irregular; these natural shapes and patterns are generally characterized by curved lines as well as soft and uneven edges—qualities that tend to communicate comfort, familiarity, and approachability.
“Now you’re seeing these shapes and forms be extracted from nature and applied in innovative ways to things like flooring to truly have an impactful psychological effect on how you experience the space,” Ariel Lumry, interior project designer at Perkins&Will, previously told gb&d. “It’s the softness and the curves and repetition of patterns that are natural in origin. We automatically relate to it without even realizing it.”
Arktura’s Atmosphera line of acoustic baffles, for example, includes several designs inspired by various organic geometries found in nature including waves, billowing clouds, and the flowing undulation of rolling hills.
7. Craft Biophilic Spatial Relationships
The ability to see through the brightly finished wire mesh at this McDonald’s headquarters allows for uninterrupted sightlines and natural light to filter into the space while creating distinct separations. Photo courtesy of Banker Wire
Biophilic spatial relationships are an underappreciated way in which our physical environments can positively impact emotional health and well-being. Terrapin Bright Green—a leading environmental consultant—identifies four core spatial relationships: prospect, refuge, mystery, and risk/peril.
- Prospect. A space that has a good prospect condition emphasizes horizons, unobstructed sightlines, open expanses, and other factors reminiscent of the African savannahs in which we as a species evolved; such characteristics impart a sense of safety, control, and freedom—even if the environment itself is unfamiliar—while also helping to reduce feelings of stress, fatigue, boredom, and perceived vulnerability.
- Refuge. Spaces of refuge focus on providing safe spaces where individuals may withdraw from the main flow of activity for protection, work, rest, or healing; these spaces are meant to feel separate from the surrounding environment without being entirely disengaged, typically by providing the occupant with overhead protection and shielding them on three sides.
- Mystery. The idea of mystery recognizes that a place needs to entice individuals to explore and travel deeper into their environments by employing features that partially obscure/reveal or through hidden sensory stimuli; this experience is based on the idea that people need to be able to both understand and explore their surroundings.
- Risk/peril. Though it may at first sound counterintuitive, instilling a sense of risk/peril in occupants is not about actually putting them in any sort of danger—rather, these spaces are designed to have identifiable threats or perceived risks that are in turn rendered inert by the presence of reliable safety features; the presence of these controllable risks is fundamentally intended to arouse one’s curiosity and attention.
8. Add Water Features
Fountains to play in, rocks to climb, and plentiful seating options fill Klyde Warren Park in Dallas. Photo courtesy of OJB
Like exposure to daylight and plants, features like fountains and water walls can help reduce stress and anxiety, making for happier, healthier, more productive occupants.
“Adding water features, the sounds of running or splashing water, views of exterior water features, and pictures of waterbodies can add calm and connect people with nature,” Kelly Walowski, global account consultant for Ambius, previously wrote for gb&d.
Researchers have found that the very sight and sound of water induces a flood of neurochemicals and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, leading to increased blood flow to the heart and brain and inducing feelings of calm and relaxation.
9. Incorporate Natural Scents
Photo courtesy of Ambius
It is also possible to improve emotional well-being through the strategic use of natural scents.
“Scent is one of our most powerful senses and is intrinsically linked to emotion and memory,” Walowski wrote in a separate gb&dPRO article. Everyone has different aromatic preferences but scents like sandalwood, orange blossom, rose, cedar, lavender, jasmine, clary sage, and clove are all popular choices considered to be both earthy and calming.
Because the body’s sense of smell is closely linked to the limbic system—which is responsible for regulating memories and emotions—scents can also have a powerful effect on mood and cognition. Like many natural sounds, natural scents can help reduce feelings of anxiety and induce feelings of calm. Natural scents may be introduced to a space by way of candles, incense, reed diffusers, or through the materials themselves, either in the form of potpourri, fresh cut flowers, et cetera.
In addition to living walls and interior vegetation, Ambius also specializes in premium scenting solutions to help facilitate diverse biophilic sensory experiences. “Impactful designs tap into multiple senses,” writes Walowski. “The fine details of interior spaces should go beyond what people see and feel. One of the best ways to ensure a design truly stands out is to create a sensory experience that engages the sense of smell.”
10. Access to the Outdoors
Today’s workplace is turned inside out with Fifth + Tillery, designed by Gensler. Its palette was kept intentionally utilitarian and natural, with a hybrid timber structural system. Photo by Ryan Conway
Incorporating biophilic elements within the built environment goes a long way in improving emotional well-being, but nothing beats actually having ready access to the outdoors. Giving occupants the opportunity to physically go outside allows them to enjoy the fresh air, get some sun, experience spontaneous social interaction, and truly immerse themselves in the natural world.
Landscaped terraces and green roofs, for example, are great ways to provide occupants with direct access to the outdoors even in dense urban areas where ground-level green spaces are scarce. “By offering an aesthetically pleasing landscape, green roofs can reduce stress and increase worker productivity for both building residents and the occupants of nearby buildings,” Michael T. Kozak, vice president of building materials and environmental products for Minerals Technologies, previously wrote for gb&d.
Ground-level green spaces like courtyards, parks, and walking trails provide even greater opportunities for outdoor access, encourage physical activity, and can help occupants feel more connected to their communities.
The Gensler-designed Fifth + Tillery multitenant workspace is one project that takes outdoor access to the extreme. “We started with designing a workplace that featured ample daylighting and access to nature and fresh air, which are proven strategies for supporting employee mental health and well-being,” Michael Waddell, a design director in Gensler’s Austin office, wrote in a previous gb&d article. “After studying skylights, lightwells, and atriums we posed a question to the client: What if we just turn the building inside out?”
Instead of a traditional office lobby, Fifth + Tillery boasts a large entry plaza—shaded by a grove of trees and oriented towards the south to facilitate passive ventilation—and social stair that links the plaza to the building’s upper levels, each of which possesses its own unique outdoor space. Exterior stairs and walkways replace the conventional office core, shifting circulation routes outside and encouraging interaction with the landscape.
