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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday.

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Speaker 1: Time to go into the vault for a classic episode.

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Speaker 1: This one originally published on December twenty nineteen, and it's

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Speaker 1: about the psychology of architecture. Now, we did a couple

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Speaker 1: of episodes on the subject, so this is going to

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Speaker 1: be the first one. The next one will be next weekend. Enjoy.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you, welcome to

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb

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Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick. And Robert, I thought we should

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Speaker 1: start off today talking about a place where Romans get naked.

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Speaker 1: Let's do it or got naked? Would not be the

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Speaker 1: first time. Oh, I guess that's probably true. Where when

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Speaker 1: else have we done this? Well? Well, um, well, of

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Speaker 1: course we have another show called Invention, and we've definitely

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Speaker 1: touched on the history of toilets. Oh yes, and baths,

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Speaker 1: and I think Roman baths have come up on the

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Speaker 1: show before, and just Roman culture in general. Roman culture,

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Speaker 1: like any culture, is going to contain a certain amount

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Speaker 1: of nudity, if not maybe a slightly enhanced amount of nudity. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's human life, it's culture, it's bare bottoms. Uh So

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Speaker 1: the baths of Caracalla, they are these beautiful ruins in

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Speaker 1: the city of Rome. They were built sometime in the

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Speaker 1: early third century, beginning under the emperor Septimus Severus, and

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Speaker 1: they were finished during the reign of his son, the

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Speaker 1: Emperor Caracalla. Now these were public baths that operated for

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Speaker 1: hundreds of years. I think they were in operation until

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Speaker 1: sometime in the sixth century. And the interior space of

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Speaker 1: these baths, it doesn't remain enclosed. Now the ruins are

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Speaker 1: you know, you can see some like you can see columns,

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Speaker 1: and there's actually a lot of vertical structure still there.

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Speaker 1: But you know, they don't have the roofs anymore and

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. But the interior space in these

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Speaker 1: baths originally when they were in operation, was palatial, with

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Speaker 1: these huge vaulted cathedral like ceilings and huge open halls.

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Speaker 1: And apparently they inspired the design of the original pin

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Speaker 1: station in New York. But there was a quote I

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Speaker 1: wanted to read that comes from the American architect Lewis

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Speaker 1: Kahn Lewis Kahn was at one point a professor of

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Speaker 1: architecture at Yale, but he was also known for tons

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Speaker 1: of iconic original designs, such as the campus of the

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Speaker 1: Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, Robert. I

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Speaker 1: don't know if you've ever seen that one, but it's

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Speaker 1: one of the strangest looking college campuses I've ever seen,

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Speaker 1: and it's kind of beautiful in a weird way. It's

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Speaker 1: got these buildings that look kind of like glass and

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Speaker 1: concrete accordions, you know, with these strange kind of angles

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Speaker 1: coming in. But anyway, Lewis Khan, talking about the baths

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Speaker 1: of Caracalla, he says, if you look at the baths

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Speaker 1: of Caracala, we all know that we can bathe just

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Speaker 1: as well under an eight foot ceiling as we can

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Speaker 1: under a one d and fifty foot ceiling. But there's

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Speaker 1: something about a one hundred fifty foot ceiling that makes

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Speaker 1: a man a different kind of man. And I wonder

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Speaker 1: about this, like, well, first of all, I just wonder,

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Speaker 1: would you literally wash yourself differently under an hundred and

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Speaker 1: fifty foot ceiling if you're like taking if you're taking

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Speaker 1: a bath in a cathedral does that affect the bath

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Speaker 1: at all. Well, I I have to say I can't.

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Speaker 1: I don't really have a good basis of comparison here

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Speaker 1: because I think I've bathed pretty much exclusively in like

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Speaker 1: non amphitheater environments. But on the other hand, I certainly

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Speaker 1: I can certainly think about swimming pools, and generally when

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Speaker 1: I in a swimming pool, it's either open air or

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Speaker 1: it does have a very high ceiling, which is certainly

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Speaker 1: part of the experience. Then the idea of swimming and

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Speaker 1: one of these sort of like old timey basement pools

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Speaker 1: or like one of those sometimes you see like an

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Speaker 1: image of a of a small swimming environment on a

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Speaker 1: submarine or something. Have you ever seen the swimming pool

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Speaker 1: in the basement of the Builtmore house? Yes, okay, this

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Speaker 1: is an example. Creepy looking. Yeah, I can't imagine it's

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Speaker 1: from there. Yeah, it's so enclosed. It feels like you're

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Speaker 1: going into an underwater cave. You will be hunted by

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Speaker 1: glowing jellyfish until you die. Yeah, but that's that's Mason

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Speaker 1: Berger's swimming pool. I don't want I don't want to,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean so, we we've talked before about

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Speaker 1: some of the possible psychological effects of you know, bathroom

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Speaker 1: related architectural features. I remember when we did the episode

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Speaker 1: of our other show Invention, about the invention of the toilet.

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Speaker 1: I remember thinking, like, does the location and shape and

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Speaker 1: design of the place where you go to defecate shape

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Speaker 1: your feelings about these body functions? Like do people who

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Speaker 1: go to the bathroom with a flush toilet inside their

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Speaker 1: house tend to have different attitudes on average towards a

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Speaker 1: scatological humor or things like that than people who would

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Speaker 1: use say a wooden outhouse or an open pit latrine

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Speaker 1: or any other way of going to the bathroom. Well, certainly,

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Speaker 1: urinating outside and under the right circumstances, obviously um like

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Speaker 1: in the woods, is a totally different experience than than

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Speaker 1: urinating inside of a restroom or into a urinal um.

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Speaker 1: And I would say it is it is overall a

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Speaker 1: better experience. I never really stopped to really consider why,

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Speaker 1: but it does feel better to urinate in nature, again,

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Speaker 1: assuming that it is the ideal sort of nature, not say,

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Speaker 1: you know, uh, at a bus stop or or or

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Speaker 1: even in the woods on like at a dark, rainy evening,

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Yeah, I get what you're saying,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to draw to direct an analogy,

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Speaker 1: because I'm sure extremely different things are going on. But

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Speaker 1: I mean, you watch the way that dogs urinate in

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Speaker 1: their environment, and that's like a that's like a you know,

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Speaker 1: a territory marking and information can conveying thing, at least

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Speaker 1: in some cases for dogs. I'm not saying humans do

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Speaker 1: the same thing, But you've gotta wonder maybe I don't know,

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Speaker 1: if there's some kind of like instinctual preference for some

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Speaker 1: types of expansive urination behavior as opposed to enclose urination behavior.

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Speaker 1: I don't know well, or certainly the power to urinate

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Speaker 1: where you do not live or where you are not

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Speaker 1: currently residing, like that is ultimately more natural than urinating

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Speaker 1: within a shelter and that you live in. Uh, in

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Speaker 1: terms of the grand history of humanity. And so already

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Speaker 1: we're we're we're getting we're dealing with this with this duality,

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Speaker 1: this dichotomy rather of of life indoors, life in created environments,

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Speaker 1: and of course life in nature, in the natural world. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And that's what we're gonna keep coming back to this

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Speaker 1: as we discuss for two episodes of stuff to blow

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Speaker 1: your mind. Uh, the psychological power of architecture. Yeah, uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: So I want to come back to Lewis Kahn's question,

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Speaker 1: like the idea of whether bathing in a cathedral like

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Speaker 1: building with a huge high ceiling has it sort of

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Speaker 1: creates a different kind of person or creates a different

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Speaker 1: kind of mindset than bathing in a normal bathroom like

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Speaker 1: most people would today. Yeah. Yeah, And and of course

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Speaker 1: we can take this and apply it to just about

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Speaker 1: every aspect of life, right of course. I mean we're

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Speaker 1: we're not just talking about bathing, it's it's about our lives.

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Speaker 1: And know, in the year twenty nineteen, probably most of

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Speaker 1: the people listening to this podcast are gonna going to

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Speaker 1: be spending the majority of their lives in and around

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Speaker 1: artificial environments created by humans rather than living, you know,

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Speaker 1: in the natural environment. This can't be psychologically and culturally irrelevant, right, So,

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Speaker 1: so yeah, we want to talk about the hidden psychological

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Speaker 1: and cultural impacts of the buildings that we live in

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Speaker 1: and around. I think we've before considered the ways that

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Speaker 1: culture and human psychology shape architecture, right, you know, like

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Speaker 1: like human drives toward building certain kinds of buildings, but

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Speaker 1: how does it work the other way around? How does

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Speaker 1: architecture affect our minds and our societies? Yeah, you know,

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Speaker 1: there's a there's a there's a famous quote by Winston

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Speaker 1: Churchill from a speech that he was giving, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: regarding you know, reconstruction. Uh, and he said, quote, we

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Speaker 1: shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Of course this is a lot of what we end

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Speaker 1: up discussing on invention, right, and not just like why

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Speaker 1: we why humans created a certain invention, but how that

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Speaker 1: invention turned around in shape society. Absolutely, at the very least,

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Speaker 1: it's something you have to look at all the time.

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Speaker 1: But also these the new objects, new technologies, they give

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Speaker 1: us new ways to think about ourselves. So, first of all,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about that which architecture imitates, and indeed what

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Speaker 1: all of our human designed and human created buildings and

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Speaker 1: structures and architectural objects are made out of, and that

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Speaker 1: is of course the natural world. So to state the

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Speaker 1: obvious natural environments have an effect on us, I mean, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's putting it mild, like the natural environments created us.

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Speaker 1: That's right. The whole process of evolution is being shaped

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Speaker 1: by the environment. Yeah, we are made out of it

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Speaker 1: as well. Uh. The environment sustains us. Uh. And say,

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Speaker 1: just if we can just think back to if you

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Speaker 1: took a hike recently, um, which I was fortunate enough

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Speaker 1: to to to do recently, to take a hike through

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Speaker 1: the wilderness. UM, just think about what that experience was

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Speaker 1: was like all the ways that it sustained you. That

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Speaker 1: the air didn't just feel nice, It allows you to breathe.

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Speaker 1: The sudden sun didn't just feel warm on your skin,

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Speaker 1: It provided you with vitamin D. You expose yourself to

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Speaker 1: a host of microbes that influence your inner dimensions and

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Speaker 1: and uh and contributed to your your microbial health. Now,

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Speaker 1: your distant ancestors might have well engaged on a similar

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Speaker 1: walk through the woods or through the wilderness whatever is

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Speaker 1: coming into your mind here, and they would have been breathing,

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Speaker 1: they would have been absorbing sunlight, and they would have

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Speaker 1: been encountering microbes as well. But they would have also

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Speaker 1: looked with a keen eye for the various elements that

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Speaker 1: would have truly sustained them. Flora that might be gathered,

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Speaker 1: rocks and stones that might be used in tool construction,

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Speaker 1: and fauna or the signs of fauna that could be

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Speaker 1: killed for meat uh and or organic construction uh elements,

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Speaker 1: things that could be utilized again in their their toolmaking

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Speaker 1: and their shelter and their clothing. And they might have

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Speaker 1: had a keen eye as well for environmental conditions that

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Speaker 1: were advantageous or detrimental to their serve rival. Fresh water caves,

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Speaker 1: natural springs in which to bathe, hollows that might afford protection,

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Speaker 1: heights of hill or tree that might provide a strategic

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Speaker 1: vantage point, places to hide, places where the enemy might dwell,

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Speaker 1: and places of potential mundane and sacred importance as well.

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Speaker 1: And it's argued that a lot of these observations are

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Speaker 1: still active and as submerged as we embark on such

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Speaker 1: a walk or a hike through the woods, or spend

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Speaker 1: any amount of time in a natural domain, or even

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Speaker 1: just a place that is cultivated to have those properties,

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Speaker 1: like a you know, a finely manicured city park, that

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Speaker 1: sort of thing. Uh. Such environments fully capture our array

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Speaker 1: of senses, senses that of course evolved to aid us

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Speaker 1: in nature. Nature and returns to nature therefore have long

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Speaker 1: been thought of as having healing powers over us, both

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Speaker 1: mentally and physically. Yeah, and this recalls part of what

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Speaker 1: we talked about when we did an episode on EO.

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Speaker 1: Wilson's concept of biophilia, which is a hypothetical innate tendency

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Speaker 1: in humans to focus on life and lifelike processes instead

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Speaker 1: of on you know, the unnatural synthetic types of objects. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And citing the hypothesis here, by the way, is not

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Speaker 1: an indication that we assume it to be coherent or correct.

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Speaker 1: If you want the fuller take, we did an episode

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Speaker 1: on it that also covered criticisms of the idea. But

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Speaker 1: if you recall, one major avenue of evidence that Wilson

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Speaker 1: and others called upon to support it was about the

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Speaker 1: shape of ideal landscapes. You know, there was basically this

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Speaker 1: concept of the environment of evolutionary adapted nous that animals

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Speaker 1: tend not to be adapted to live anywhere on Earth,

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Speaker 1: but to a particular landscape that shaped their genes, and

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Speaker 1: they would have had preferences within that landscape of you know,

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Speaker 1: things they like to be around that make it easier

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Speaker 1: to survive, and as such, like their brains should have

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Speaker 1: a ways of telling them to look for that type

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Speaker 1: of landscape, look for the place that you're most adapted

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Speaker 1: to UH. And so it turns out that there are

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Speaker 1: certain things that lots of humans seem to show preferences

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Speaker 1: for with when they're when they're presented with different options

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Speaker 1: of landscapes. People tend to like open spaces with low

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Speaker 1: grasses interspersed with copses of trees UH. They like the

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Speaker 1: trees to look like trees that could maybe be climbed.

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Speaker 1: They like to be able to see water nearby. They

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Speaker 1: like to be able to see uh animal or bird

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Speaker 1: life and greenery. They like to be able to see

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Speaker 1: pathways extending into the distance UH. And apparently, at least

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Speaker 1: according to the hypothesis, like this landscape type is widely

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Speaker 1: regarded as beautiful, even by people who might now live

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Speaker 1: in places that don't have this kind of landscape. You know,

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Speaker 1: you might live in the Arctic tundra, or in the

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Speaker 1: in the desert or something where you don't see landscapes

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Speaker 1: like this, and yet still people living in these other

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Speaker 1: places often love to see that kind of imagery right,

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Speaker 1: and it's often brought up there. This is why many

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Speaker 1: of the more famous and beloved landscape paintings or paintings

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Speaker 1: that aren't even specifically landscape and have a landscape element

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Speaker 1: to them, you know, such as um, well you might

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Speaker 1: take um, was it is it brugal the elder's um uh?

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Speaker 1: Fall of Acreus? I think so, yeah, where you know,

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Speaker 1: the the subject is Acorus falling from the heavens on

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Speaker 1: his failed wings. But it is. But it's a it

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Speaker 1: is a piece of art that is predominantly concerned with landscape. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and now these kind of preferences. Of course, this could

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Speaker 1: be interpreting them wrong. You know, maybe there are other

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Speaker 1: reasons people like things like this. Maybe people don't even

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Speaker 1: widely like them as much as it's alleged that they do.

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Speaker 1: But if this is correct, it seems like not hard

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Speaker 1: to imagine why we have a keen eye for that

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Speaker 1: sort of stuff. Access to water is important for life,

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Speaker 1: Access to you know, greenery and animals are important to

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Speaker 1: you know, for food and for shade and for all

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Uh. It's nice to be able

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Speaker 1: to see from a high vantage point, as you mentioned earlier.

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Speaker 1: That's like a safety security kind of thing. Yeah, Or

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Speaker 1: if if some sort of animal were to chase you,

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Speaker 1: it's nice to think that you might be able to

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Speaker 1: seek refuge in, you know, in the limbs of a

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Speaker 1: tree or at the top of a jungle gym, that

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Speaker 1: sort of thing, Yes, a aimable tree. Yeah. So, whether

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Speaker 1: or not there's there's truth to this whole connection between

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Speaker 1: biophilia and the supposed landscape of evolutionary adapted nous, there

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Speaker 1: is certainly the fact that we are brains were shaped

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Speaker 1: by our ancestral environments, and it should not be surprising

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Speaker 1: to us that we have preferences for certain types of

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Speaker 1: visually identifiable features of environments as opposed to others. Absolutely. Now,

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Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier that there's this idea that spending time

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Speaker 1: in nature has a beneficial effect on us mentally and physically.

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Speaker 1: And this is a this is a very old idea.

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Speaker 1: You'll you'll find this h in a number of different cultures. Uh.

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Speaker 1: One one great example is forest therapy in Japan. According

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Speaker 1: to Rebecca A. Lawton, writing for Ian Magazine in an

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Speaker 1: article titled the Healing Power of Nature, she points out

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Speaker 1: that you know this, this age old tradition calls for

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Speaker 1: the individual to walk, sit, gaze, and extra sides amid

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Speaker 1: the trees, as well as to eat local foods and

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Speaker 1: use local hot springs and uh and actually it is

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Speaker 1: a tradition that apparently factors into different studies because it's um,

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Speaker 1: it's it's just apparently like a really good example of Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's see what happens when people who are suffering from

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Speaker 1: one ailment or another take to the woods for a

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Speaker 1: certain amount of time. But anyway, she points out that

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Speaker 1: studies indicate there about twenty one possible pathways to improved

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Speaker 1: health via exposure to nature. Exposure impacts depression and anxiety

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Speaker 1: and anxiety as well. Plus studies show that just three

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Speaker 1: days and two nights in a woodland environment can increase

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Speaker 1: immune system functions and boost well being for up to

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Speaker 1: seven days. Uh So, the notion that we feel better

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Speaker 1: in nature is firmly supported by science, she writes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this is something that's been argued by a lot

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Speaker 1: of people over the years. There was a study that

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Speaker 1: I know we've looked at at least one previous episode

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Speaker 1: might have been the biophilia episode UM that was by

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Speaker 1: all Rick published in the journal Science in nineteen eighty

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Speaker 1: four called view through a Window may Influence Recovery from surgery.

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Speaker 1: And basically what this found is that patients in hospitals

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Speaker 1: who could see trees like greenery through a window had

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Speaker 1: better recovery times, like they got out of the hospital earlier,

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Speaker 1: and they used fewer pain medications than people who could

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Speaker 1: not see such things, who were instead faced with the

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Speaker 1: view of a brick wall. Yeah. Yeah, And other studies

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Speaker 1: have also pointed to just having like a landscape painting

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Speaker 1: around to be exposed to can have some degree of

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Speaker 1: effect as well. Now, I think it'd be important to

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Speaker 1: point out that I assumed that the view of nature

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Speaker 1: thing probably has stronger effects on certain types of things

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Speaker 1: than others. Right. I would imagine that it probably especially

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Speaker 1: has effects on treatment outcomes that are subjectively limited, like

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Speaker 1: the perception of pain, and that there you can see

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Speaker 1: also in uh, people taking less pain medication for whatever

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Speaker 1: they were suffering from when they could see nature. The

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Speaker 1: idea there, I guess would be that the view of

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Speaker 1: nature somehow changes your mind state that makes pain less painful.

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Speaker 1: Right and uh. And of course, and we'll get into

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Speaker 1: this more in the second episode. But just because you

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Speaker 1: have a room of the view of nature, that I mean,

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Speaker 1: that does not solve all your problems obviously, right of course.

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Speaker 1: Now another paper, I was looking at a two thousand

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Speaker 1: seven overview from Villar day at All, published in Urban

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Speaker 1: Forestry and Urban Greening, points out that exposure to landscapes

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Speaker 1: in particular, have been shown to reduce stress, improve attention capacity,

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Speaker 1: facilitate recovery from illness, um help with physical well being

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Speaker 1: and the elderly and influenced behavioral changes, and improve mood

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Speaker 1: and general well being. So all this suffice to say,

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Speaker 1: and this is going to sound again like one of

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Speaker 1: those sort of hippie hippie overstatements of the obvious here,

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Speaker 1: but nature is simply where we are meant to be,

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Speaker 1: which again it's just crazy to even point that out

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Speaker 1: because it raises the question where else could we be?

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Speaker 1: But in nature? Well, here we are. Yeah. Humans steadily

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Speaker 1: created an answer to that question shelters, which, of course

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Speaker 1: we have to think about shelf there's too like what

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Speaker 1: did a shelter originally do? It provided us this place

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Speaker 1: to go when it was better not to be in nature.

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Speaker 1: It's safety, it's protection from the elements, and it's protection

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Speaker 1: from predators and enemies. It's something that uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: protects you from the weather, of course, but then also

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Speaker 1: it's something you can put your back to and there

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Speaker 1: and have a more defensible or secur herble position from threats. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: in a way, it was like a kind of way

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Speaker 1: of hacking the environment. Like there's a certain type of

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Speaker 1: environmental condition that is ideal for me during say a

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Speaker 1: rain storm, but I cannot find that everywhere when I

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Speaker 1: need it. But what have I By use of my

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Speaker 1: my my limbs, and my strength and my tools and

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Speaker 1: my ingenuity, I'm able to craft the natural world into

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Speaker 1: the shape I need when I need it. I can

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Speaker 1: make a cave. I don't need to find a cave,

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Speaker 1: so it begins there. But of course that evolves, and

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Speaker 1: it rises to the level of camps and villages, and

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Speaker 1: the steadily evolves and to the cities of today and

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Speaker 1: today is proposed geological age. The anthropsyn is defined by

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Speaker 1: the transformation of the natural world, which includes the transformation

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Speaker 1: brought by cities and city escapes and they urban sprawl

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Speaker 1: all around them, along with massive environmental alterations that include deforestation, extinctions,

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Speaker 1: mass extinctions, and of course climate change right now. Of course,

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Speaker 1: we're not the only animals that engineer our own environments,

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Speaker 1: like beavers, of course, our our favorite rusty tooth buddies.

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Speaker 1: They are you know, famous for engineering their own environments.

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Speaker 1: Beaver dam is built out of you know, wooden debris

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Speaker 1: and stuff from the surrounding environment. Can become enormous like

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Speaker 1: landscape transforming projects. There's one example of in a wilderness

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Speaker 1: region of northern Alberta, Canada, there is a beaver dam

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Speaker 1: that appears to be over eight hundred and fifty meters

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Speaker 1: long and half a mile. That's almost like a beaver city.

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Speaker 1: I didn't I had no idea. Yes, it's like a

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Speaker 1: beaver city. It is so massive that it can actually

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Speaker 1: be seen from satellite photos. In fact, for a while,

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Speaker 1: the aerial photos taken of it, we're the only way

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Speaker 1: that it had been seen by humans that we know of,

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Speaker 1: since it's not like right by a road or a city.

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Speaker 1: It's in this very inaccessible part of the Canadian wilderness

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Speaker 1: that's like hard to get through. You know, there's there's

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Speaker 1: no road that goes there. But in an amateur explorer

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Speaker 1: from New Jersey named Rob Mark plotted a route and

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Speaker 1: actually made the arduous hike through the mosquito filled marshes

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Speaker 1: and forests to get there and see it in person.

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Speaker 1: And he did. He got there in teen Apparently the

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Speaker 1: beavers have been working on this damn since the nineteen seventies. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's huge. It's like the size of a small town.

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Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you shouldn't say city, I mean for beavers proportionally,

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Speaker 1: maybe it's city. But yeah, this is like a settlement size.

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Speaker 1: But um uh. Beaver dams otherwise are fascinating environmental engineering projects.

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Speaker 1: So one interesting purpose they served I was just reading

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Speaker 1: about it never read about before, was Uh, when a

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Speaker 1: beaver damns a waterway, the reservoir that fills up behind

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Speaker 1: the dam naturally grows deeper than the original waterway, and

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Speaker 1: this deepening helps ensure that when the winter freeze comes,

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Speaker 1: the water is less likely to freeze all the way through.

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Speaker 1: And this cold but unfrozen water at the bottom of

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Speaker 1: the artificial lake serves as a useful place for the

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Speaker 1: beavers to store and access food throughout the winter. That's interesting.

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Speaker 1: I had no idea either. So anyway, all that just

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Speaker 1: emphasized that humans aren't the only animals that alter their environments,

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Speaker 1: that that engineer environments in which to live and change

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Speaker 1: the surrounding landscape. But I think you'd be very safe

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Speaker 1: in assuming that humans alter the natural environment to a

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Speaker 1: much greater extent and in a greater variety of ways,

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Speaker 1: both deliberate and accidental, than any other animal, and in

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Speaker 1: a shorter amount of time. Yes, because we've explored in

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Speaker 1: the show before, you know, vast geological changes that have

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Speaker 1: been brought about via the emergence of life. But we're

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Speaker 1: talking about changes that can be brought on in thousands,

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Speaker 1: hundreds of years, or even decades of course. Uh. And so,

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Speaker 1: of course, one of the perhaps most self defeating ways

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Speaker 1: that we engineer the natural environment is in creating these

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Speaker 1: living and working spaces for ourselves almost entirely out of

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Speaker 1: artificial elements and structures. And so you are an animal,

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Speaker 1: but the chances are good that you live in work

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Speaker 1: mostly inside some kind of box with a lot of flat,

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Speaker 1: hard surfaces and ninety degree angles. And how do you

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Speaker 1: like it? Well? It has its ups and doubts, doesn't it. Yeah? Well, no,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to undersell the use of

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Speaker 1: I mean it's good to have a place that you

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Speaker 1: can secure and be safe, and it's good to have

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Speaker 1: a place where you're protected from the elements. That's all

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Speaker 1: good stuff. Oh, yeah, absolutely, it is nice to be

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Speaker 1: able to have a temperature controlled box, especially if you

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Speaker 1: were in a part of the world or in a

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Speaker 1: it's a time of the year in which the outside

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Speaker 1: conditions are not ideal, especially for say, sitting around in

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Speaker 1: front of a computer otherwise motionless. But I wonder if

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Speaker 1: there are ways that the boxes could be better. Well,

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Speaker 1: the box can always be better, right, because the ideal

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Speaker 1: box resides in the what the realm of forums? Right? Uh? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we've we have both the natural environment now and

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Speaker 1: the built environment, the later of which is the design

429
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 1: domain of architecture. Architecture comes to us the word comes

430
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:27,280
Speaker 1: from the Greek architect on, which means chief creator. We

431
00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:30,400
Speaker 1: remake the world. But of course we experience the world

432
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:34,280
Speaker 1: through our evolved sensibilities for the natural and hopefully, uh,

433
00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 1: the architect of a given building designed it was at

434
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:41,359
Speaker 1: least some of these sensibilities in mind. Uh. But but

435
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:44,040
Speaker 1: of course this is not always the case, hopefully but

436
00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:47,240
Speaker 1: maybe often not. Alright, So maybe we can take a

437
00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 1: quick break, and then when we come back, we can

438
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:52,920
Speaker 1: talk about ways that architecture impacts us in our minds.

439
00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:59,800
Speaker 1: Thank alright, we're back. We're talking about architecture of course. Now,

440
00:23:59,840 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 1: just of course, reminder, Joe and I are not architects. Uh.

441
00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:05,960
Speaker 1: But but we know that some of you out there

442
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:08,760
Speaker 1: are architects or have some sort of architectural background. So

443
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:11,400
Speaker 1: that's right. We've heard from some architects before. So as

444
00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:15,040
Speaker 1: always we're happy to to hear from our listeners on

445
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:18,919
Speaker 1: these topics, to be corrected as need be. But but generally,

446
00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 1: you know, if you just have additional info to add

447
00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:25,359
Speaker 1: additional examples, especially as we start getting into a few

448
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:29,440
Speaker 1: examples of some of the architecture and architectural principles that

449
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 1: will be discussing here. Before the break, we were talking

450
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 1: about the natural world and how we've evolved to thrive

451
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:38,200
Speaker 1: in the natural world, and how our senses are there

452
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:41,199
Speaker 1: to help us navigate that natural world. But now, of

453
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:44,359
Speaker 1: course we live uh to a very large degree in

454
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:49,119
Speaker 1: an unnatural world. Of all these various boxes that we

455
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:52,639
Speaker 1: have designed that we have built out of natural uh,

456
00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: naturally occurring materials hashtag box life. Yes. So that quote

457
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 1: I mentioned at the beginning of the episode by Loui Khan,

458
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,439
Speaker 1: the American architect, about being a different kind of person

459
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:07,159
Speaker 1: under a one and fifty foot ceiling, uh, that is

460
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:12,440
Speaker 1: referenced in a seventeen book by Sarah Williams Goldhagen, who

461
00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:15,679
Speaker 1: was the architecture critic for the New New Republic for

462
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 1: many years. She previously, I think, taught at Harvard Graduate

463
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:22,119
Speaker 1: School School of Design, and now she's an author, And

464
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:25,639
Speaker 1: in ten she published a book called Welcome to Your World,

465
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives and Uh. This

466
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:33,000
Speaker 1: book makes the case that the built environments around us

467
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: have profound impacts on our minds and our well being,

468
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: and this relationship between architecture and the quality of human

469
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 1: life is undervalued in in the building, the building world,

470
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 1: and real estate development. And she argues that good building

471
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:50,639
Speaker 1: design should not just be thought of as kind of

472
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 1: like an extravagance or a frivolous opulence. You know, Architecture

473
00:25:54,560 --> 00:25:57,640
Speaker 1: isn't like getting a vanity plate for your car. It's

474
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:00,879
Speaker 1: actually a social good or a public service, one that

475
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:05,440
Speaker 1: directly contributes significantly to the quality of life of people

476
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:09,080
Speaker 1: who live in buildings and in urban environments. Actually originally

477
00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: got interested in talking about the subject that we're tackling

478
00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 1: today because I read a seventeen article in City Lab

479
00:26:14,600 --> 00:26:18,360
Speaker 1: which featured an interview with Sarah Williams gold Hagan promoting

480
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: her book, and so gold Hagan mentions that she was

481
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 1: inspired to research and write this book after reading an

482
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:27,439
Speaker 1: older book that we've referenced on this show before, Metaphors

483
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:29,920
Speaker 1: We Live By, published in nineteen eighty by the cognitive

484
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: linguists George Lakeoff and the philosopher Mark Johnson. Uh. I

485
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: don't remember what episode that came up in, but uh,

486
00:26:36,960 --> 00:26:39,560
Speaker 1: maybe in one we did about like embodied cognition. Yeah,

487
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 1: that makes sense, so it talks about that. It's a

488
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 1: book about the role of metaphors in our lives and

489
00:26:44,480 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 1: our thinking, and one concept that's explored in the book

490
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: is the role of our physical bodies in physical space

491
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:54,280
Speaker 1: as a key metaphor for understanding our thoughts and emotions. So,

492
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:57,880
Speaker 1: for example, happy is up and sad is down. Isn't

493
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,240
Speaker 1: that kind of strange, like why would happy be up

494
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 1: and sad be down? But it seems like there's a

495
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:07,400
Speaker 1: there's a sort of brute physical reality to those associations. Right,

496
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:11,360
Speaker 1: when you're happy, you your posture literally lifts, you come

497
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,439
Speaker 1: up and you're you're more upright. When you're sad, you droop.

498
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 1: This also reminds me of I think we've discussed studies

499
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 1: in the show before about walking around looking more up

500
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:23,920
Speaker 1: or looking down. The idea of like, looking up, you're

501
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:27,160
Speaker 1: more open to new experiences. You're looking down, you're more

502
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:29,440
Speaker 1: concerned with you know what, you may be tripping over

503
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:32,919
Speaker 1: or stepping in. Yeah, totally, But I mean just think

504
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:36,720
Speaker 1: about the ways that these types of spatial metaphors and

505
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 1: body related metaphors utterly pervade our abstract and emotional thinking.

506
00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:44,240
Speaker 1: The way you can get over it, get over something,

507
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:46,320
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Like it says if you are

508
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 1: standing over a person or an animal or something having

509
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: conquered it, or you're able to leap over a problem

510
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:56,640
Speaker 1: and like, you know, get past it. I guess that's

511
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:01,880
Speaker 1: another literal space metaphor um. And so this idea inspired

512
00:28:01,920 --> 00:28:04,400
Speaker 1: her to think more about the way is that our

513
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: physical space, the physical spaces that we occupy, literally shape

514
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:12,639
Speaker 1: our thinking about our emotional lives and so and it

515
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: turns out there's actually a good amount of research that

516
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:17,720
Speaker 1: already highlights this fact, and so she explores a lot

517
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 1: of this in her book, and Uh, Goldhaking gives some

518
00:28:20,800 --> 00:28:25,960
Speaker 1: examples of ways that current building in architecture projects often

519
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: undervalue things that we already know about the human experience

520
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:33,440
Speaker 1: of built environments, and one example she gives is overall

521
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 1: form of buildings versus the texture of surfaces. So in

522
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,720
Speaker 1: this interview she says, quote, very often in cities, the

523
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:49,120
Speaker 1: overall form of buildings is given much more priority than materials, surfaces, textures,

524
00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: and details. What we know about the way we appropriate

525
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 1: and experience places is that the overall form of a

526
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: place is not what most dramatically affects our experience of it.

527
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: It's more what psychologists called the surface based queues. So

528
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: I was looking for research to support this, and I

529
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: think here she's referring to work, including the following study

530
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:15,440
Speaker 1: one by Jonathan Skant and Melvin Gooddale in cerebral cortex

531
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 1: in two thousands six called attention to form or surface

532
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 1: properties modulates different regions of human occipito temporal cortex. And

533
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 1: so the basic ideas Goldhagen rights that compared to overall

534
00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 1: forms of buildings, research indicates that surface based cues like

535
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: materials and textures, you know, the kind of textures and

536
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 1: details on walls and things like that, elicit a more

537
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: powerful quote whole body intersensory and emotional response. That these

538
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: kind of things might have a deeper access to our

539
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 1: emotional well being than say the overall shape of a

540
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 1: building at large wood, you know, and this is something

541
00:29:52,200 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: worth keeping in mind. And next time anyone out there

542
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 1: takes a small child to a museum where you're expressly

543
00:29:56,440 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: told not to touch anything, you know, like the obviously

544
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 1: we need to connect with our environment and like touch

545
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, and the proper understanding of the

546
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 1: physical surfaces of things that a big part of that.

547
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: Oh you're saying like, yeah, yeah, like that. Well, I

548
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 1: think she's mainly talking about this individual sense, but touch. Obviously,

549
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: the desire to touch extends from our desire to process surfaces. Yeah,

550
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 1: I think that actually makes sense. Then, Like a lot

551
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: of like the details and surfaces and textures and materials

552
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: that have the most emotional access to to our brains

553
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:33,600
Speaker 1: that have that caused these deeper whole body feelings are

554
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 1: things that we want to like get right up with

555
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 1: and interact with directly. You can't really do that with like, say,

556
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: the overall form of a skyscraper. No, that's true. You

557
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:44,840
Speaker 1: can certainly kind up and touch part of it, but

558
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 1: it's not the full experience totally. Uh So, she's arguing

559
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 1: sort of a more perfectly tuned neuroarchitecture might pay more

560
00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 1: attention to what surfaces are made out of, what physical

561
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,400
Speaker 1: details and accents they have on them, than to the

562
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 1: overall shape of the building. Though it's not like the

563
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: overall shape of the building is meaningless. That that has

564
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 1: important implications to which will explore more as we go on.

565
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:12,160
Speaker 1: But a few more ideas discussed in a review of

566
00:31:12,160 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 1: her book I was reading an architect magazine by Blaine

567
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:19,960
Speaker 1: Brownwell uh Goldhagan also says that architecture, to better suit

568
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 1: our minds, should strive for a kind of what she

569
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 1: calls patterned complexity. So this means it's neither complex in

570
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 1: a way that's confusing as to the building's purpose. Right,

571
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:32,640
Speaker 1: you don't want to a building that's just kind of

572
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: assaulting your senses and you don't know where to go

573
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: or what to do. But at the same time, you

574
00:31:37,480 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: don't She says, you don't want buildings that are simple

575
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 1: in ways that make them unnatural, boring, flat, and deadening,

576
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: that these have negative emotional qualities. The way I interpret

577
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 1: what she's saying here is I think it means you're

578
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 1: interested in if you're trying to create a building for

579
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 1: you know, for good cognitive, mental emotional health of the

580
00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 1: people in it. You're searching for the kind of surface

581
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 1: complexity that you might find in pleasing natural environments. So

582
00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 1: making buildings that most resemble the features mirroring the structure

583
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 1: of the surface qualities of trees, the river, the rock

584
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:15,959
Speaker 1: outcropping and the overlook and things like that. And I

585
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: absolutely find that this rings true to me in the

586
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 1: buildings that I like the most. Like, just before we

587
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 1: came into the studio, we were looking at a picture

588
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: of the Boston City Hall, which I know is a

589
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 1: is a controversial building I think, like so it's an

590
00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:35,479
Speaker 1: example of brutalist architecture, and some people hate it and

591
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: some people like it, at least from the angle I

592
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 1: was looking at a lot of the photos of it.

593
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: I really kind of like it because it has it

594
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 1: has some kind of varied size elements that have some

595
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 1: verticality to them that somehow make this big concrete building

596
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:52,520
Speaker 1: in some ways look like a copse of trees that

597
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 1: you could go into. It's almost kind of a forest. Yeah,

598
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:58,200
Speaker 1: you showed me an image of it, and when I

599
00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 1: look at it at a at a building like that,

600
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 1: I find myself on some level like probably not you know,

601
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:07,240
Speaker 1: you know, overtly, but at least subconsciously, I'm thinking, Oh,

602
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: there's a place I could hide, There's another place I

603
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 1: could hide. Wouldn't it be neat to sort of lay

604
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:14,239
Speaker 1: up there or to you know, to camp on that

605
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 1: little ledge there, Like all these little um observations are

606
00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: taking place even if I'm not actively thinking about what

607
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 1: it would be like to to scale the building. I

608
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: think you're exactly right. I respond to the same kinds

609
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 1: of things, the nooks and crannies that make a natural

610
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 1: environment pleasing. Uh, you know, the idea of rocks that

611
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: you could get up on top of little forests that

612
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:38,920
Speaker 1: you could wander into. That stuff feels good. And I

613
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: think even the unnatural, even the architectural versions of them

614
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: made out of synthetic materials, feel good in the same

615
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 1: kinds of ways. Yeah. Like one example that comes to mind,

616
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: it's it's neat to see a hill or you know,

617
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 1: outcropping or something, or even a mountain and be able

618
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:59,120
Speaker 1: to sort of plot the course of ascension. Yes, But

619
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 1: likewise you can take of what is ultimately a very

620
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 1: unnatural environment, say the interior the Guggenheim Museum, which is

621
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: like what this Uh, I'm not even I don't even

622
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 1: have the architectural terminology to properly describe it. But it's

623
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 1: kind of like a spiral ramp up around a large

624
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:15,480
Speaker 1: central space, right, And that's not something you would find

625
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,480
Speaker 1: in nature. But when you look up from the bottom

626
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:20,680
Speaker 1: of that the interior that museum, you see a path

627
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:24,239
Speaker 1: of ascension. You see this this winding trail going up

628
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,080
Speaker 1: towards the top, and there's something in you that must

629
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:29,760
Speaker 1: traverse it. Well. Yeah, I think that's the same reason

630
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:33,120
Speaker 1: that we respond so well to tall buildings with terraces,

631
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 1: you know, like stepped terraces look very pleasing to us.

632
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 1: I think maybe because there's some kind of instinctual We

633
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:41,400
Speaker 1: can't know this for sure, but maybe because there's some

634
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 1: part of the brain that's looking at that and seeing

635
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 1: like that's the part that you could climb up to

636
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:47,799
Speaker 1: and then you could get from there to here. Yeah,

637
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 1: it's well, it goes back to the ziggurat. The ziggurats

638
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 1: an artificial mountain and uh, and therefore something that is

639
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: scalable and so zigguratt like elements in buildings, there's something

640
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 1: irresistible about them. And as far as ledges Go. We

641
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:04,320
Speaker 1: were talking about this before we went in the Chrysler

642
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:08,880
Speaker 1: Building in New York City. Beautiful skyscraper, you know, classic skyscraper.

643
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:11,760
Speaker 1: But there's something about those those eagles at the top.

644
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: You know that you look at that and you can't

645
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 1: help but imagine yourself up there standing on it, or

646
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: at least, you know, clutching it and crawling out on it.

647
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 1: And and and likewise, you see in fiction various scenarios

648
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 1: where superhero or some other figure is standing there, like,

649
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 1: we can't help all the time. Yeah, you gotta put

650
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 1: Batman there, you gotta put Spider Man there. Yeah, Like

651
00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:34,200
Speaker 1: sometimes it's probably too crowded, Like a superhero goes up

652
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:36,920
Speaker 1: there for their selfie and it's just overrun. Yeah, and

653
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 1: then Q the wing serpent comes flying out, and then

654
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: you never know what's gonna happen. But as much as

655
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:44,440
Speaker 1: I think in some ways it makes sense to try

656
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:49,680
Speaker 1: to create buildings that in various ways mimic natural landscapes

657
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:53,000
Speaker 1: and natural architecture of things like trees and forests and

658
00:35:53,040 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: mountains and rock out croppings and all that kind of thing,

659
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:58,800
Speaker 1: I think it's also equally important. And of course Goldhagen

660
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:01,359
Speaker 1: makes this point that there is an essential value for

661
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 1: literal physical nature as well, like green spaces and cities

662
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 1: full of natural vegetation. Absolutely, and there's a there's a

663
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 1: lot of research to bear that out, some of which

664
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 1: we'll get into in the next episode. Yes, totally. I

665
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,520
Speaker 1: mean she cites research we already mentioned this one that

666
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:19,440
Speaker 1: hospital patients have been documented in some cases to have

667
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:22,839
Speaker 1: quicker recoveries and take less pain medication when they can

668
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:27,000
Speaker 1: see natural vegetation like trees. Um. But there's also research

669
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 1: apparently that she cites that access to green spaces improves

670
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: cognitive outcomes for school children, including reduced stress. Yeah. Well,

671
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:37,480
Speaker 1: one thing. This is one of those scenarios though, of course,

672
00:36:37,520 --> 00:36:42,000
Speaker 1: where you look at major cities and and really I

673
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:44,439
Speaker 1: think like if you think of major cities that you've

674
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 1: traveled to or even minor cities, try to think about

675
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: your key memories. For me, anyway, I find my key

676
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: memories are also are often visiting the green spaces, you know,

677
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:57,759
Speaker 1: like when I think of New York, I think of

678
00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 1: of Central Park, you know, I think of uh for instance,

679
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:04,759
Speaker 1: Guangzhou or not in China. When I was in both

680
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 1: of those cities, it was it's the parks that are

681
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: that are the public spaces, the green spaces that that

682
00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 1: really burn in my memory the most. When I was

683
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: recently in London. I mean, of course I love the

684
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:19,320
Speaker 1: the interesting interior spaces of the cathedrals and the museums,

685
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:21,440
Speaker 1: but one of the main things that sticks in my

686
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 1: head is walking through like the palace gardens they just said,

687
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 1: like trees and open green spaces and and lots of

688
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 1: birds flocking about. And of course the thing with cities though,

689
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:34,200
Speaker 1: is so, yes, there are some wonderful examples of of

690
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:37,360
Speaker 1: of green spaces, and in many cases public green spaces,

691
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:40,200
Speaker 1: but then there are also plenty of examples of portions

692
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: of some of those same cities that maybe don't have

693
00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 1: the same amount of green space, that don't have as

694
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:48,279
Speaker 1: much public access to green space. And there you see

695
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 1: the flip side of the equation. Well yeah, And I

696
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:53,760
Speaker 1: think one way of reframing this is that not having

697
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:56,840
Speaker 1: access to green space is a real like cost to

698
00:37:57,000 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 1: people like that they pay a price for this mentally

699
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:04,600
Speaker 1: and motionally psychologically, for not having access to two trees

700
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 1: and grass and the sounds of birds. I mean, as

701
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 1: much as I guess that sounds like a cliche, but uh,

702
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:14,719
Speaker 1: it appears that this really matters. Yeah, but it's it's

703
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:17,280
Speaker 1: easy for I think developers and just people in general

704
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:19,719
Speaker 1: to forget this for periods of time, and then you

705
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 1: have to have individuals come along and say, you know,

706
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:24,239
Speaker 1: we need to put green space back in, we need

707
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 1: to plant trees. Uh. Here in Atlanta, this was I

708
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 1: understand to be there have been the case for a while.

709
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:32,759
Speaker 1: Uh where in the downtown area you just had a

710
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:35,840
Speaker 1: shrinking amount of green space, and then you had organizations

711
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:38,759
Speaker 1: like Trees Atlanta came along and uh and you know,

712
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:42,560
Speaker 1: took up the initiative of planting more trees and and

713
00:38:42,640 --> 00:38:44,840
Speaker 1: making sure that there there were trees around, there were

714
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:47,799
Speaker 1: green spaces, there was room for nature to exist in

715
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: the sort of concrete environments that we were creating. Yeah,

716
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:53,920
Speaker 1: and so I think that's that's got to be a

717
00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:56,240
Speaker 1: crucial part of architecture. I mean, I guess that's different

718
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:59,680
Speaker 1: from just when you're making a building. That's more broadly

719
00:38:59,719 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 1: like urban planning and that kind of thing. Though, I

720
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:03,799
Speaker 1: guess it also has to do with you know, like

721
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 1: you've got a certain plot of land and you're developing it,

722
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:08,840
Speaker 1: how much of that plot of land will you devote

723
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:11,360
Speaker 1: to just like having space where you can plant trees

724
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 1: In a lot of times, I'm sure developers would look

725
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 1: at that and say, well, that's just wasted revenue. You

726
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:19,239
Speaker 1: could fill that in with the units you can fill. Yeah,

727
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:21,279
Speaker 1: we see this all the time. I'm sure a lot

728
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:23,120
Speaker 1: of our listeners see this. We see this in Atlanta,

729
00:39:23,239 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: especially where a lot is purchased in then a developer

730
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 1: will come in and they will build just as much,

731
00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:32,840
Speaker 1: absolutely as much house is possible as is physically possible

732
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 1: on the lot. And you know, lawn, green space, trees

733
00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:39,680
Speaker 1: be damned. Uh. And then you know someone comes along

734
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: and they buy, but it's just it's all house. Now,

735
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 1: speaking about the psychological effects of of built environments and architecture,

736
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:48,720
Speaker 1: I want to come back to the thing we talked

737
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:51,240
Speaker 1: about at the beginning of the episode. Remember that quote

738
00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 1: from Louis Kahan talking about bathing in a palatial setting

739
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:57,240
Speaker 1: versus in a regular bathtub in a little room. Something

740
00:39:57,280 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 1: about a hundred and fifty foot ceiling just makes a

741
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 1: send a different kind of person. If a person is

742
00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:06,480
Speaker 1: different under a majestic high ceiling, how and why, like,

743
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 1: is there any empirical evidence for that other than your hunch,

744
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 1: and if so, why would that be true? So I

745
00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 1: want to actually look at a few studies here. All right,

746
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:17,480
Speaker 1: let's do it. So the first one I will want

747
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 1: to look at is by Vartanian at all in the

748
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 1: Journal of Environmental Psychology, published called Architectural Design in the

749
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: Brain Effects of ceiling height and perceived enclosure on beauty

750
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:35,160
Speaker 1: judgment and approach avoidance decisions. Uh So, there were some

751
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 1: basic findings here. First of all, rooms with high ceilings

752
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:42,040
Speaker 1: were judged as more beautiful than rooms with low ceilings.

753
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 1: I think there should be no surprise there. I mean

754
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:46,440
Speaker 1: that just totally goes to their intuition. You think of

755
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 1: like the cathedrals and the high ceiling palaces tend to

756
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 1: be more beautiful but more interesting. Through the use of

757
00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 1: additional psychological testing and neuroimaging with f m r I,

758
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:01,680
Speaker 1: rooms with high ceilings were showing to elicit activity in

759
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:07,680
Speaker 1: quote structures involved in visuospatial exploration and attention in the

760
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:11,720
Speaker 1: dorsal stream. Uh so. The dorsal stream is a concept

761
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 1: that's part of a hypothesis of neuroscience known as the

762
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:18,759
Speaker 1: too stream hypothesis. Basically, the idea is that the brain

763
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 1: has two main routes for processing perception of visual or

764
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:27,319
Speaker 1: auditory stimuli. You get the ventral stream, also known as

765
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:30,160
Speaker 1: the what stream or the what process, and that's used

766
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 1: primarily for identifying and recognizing things. What is that? And

767
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:37,239
Speaker 1: then you've got the dorsal stream, also known as the

768
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 1: war stream or the wear process, and that's associated with

769
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:44,759
Speaker 1: plenty of other things, but primarily with assessing where a

770
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: perceived object is in space relative to the viewer and

771
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:52,759
Speaker 1: in guiding action through space. So it seems that compared

772
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:56,320
Speaker 1: to rooms with lower ceilings, this study found that open

773
00:41:56,440 --> 00:42:00,359
Speaker 1: rooms with higher ceilings engage brain structure is associated with

774
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:05,759
Speaker 1: exploring spaces, whereas open rooms. Open rooms were also more

775
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 1: likely to engage parts of the brain that perceive a

776
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: visual motions. I think open rooms would seem to prime

777
00:42:11,719 --> 00:42:15,440
Speaker 1: you to see things moving around. Meanwhile, the same study

778
00:42:15,480 --> 00:42:20,440
Speaker 1: found that more enclosed spaces tended to trigger avoidance behaviors

779
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 1: and stimulate quote exit decisions, as well as showing increased

780
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:29,120
Speaker 1: activation in the anterior mid singulate cortex and the author's

781
00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:32,760
Speaker 1: right quote. This suggests that a reduction in perceived visual

782
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:38,719
Speaker 1: and locomotive permeability characteristic of enclosed spaces might elicit an

783
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:42,880
Speaker 1: emotional reaction that accompanies exit decisions. So, if I'm interpreting

784
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 1: this right, I think that's a technical way of saying

785
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,560
Speaker 1: that more enclosed spaces are likely on average to trigger

786
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:52,319
Speaker 1: less activity in the brain that says, let's explore, and

787
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:54,640
Speaker 1: more activity in the structure of the brain that says

788
00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 1: it's time to get out. Now, I think that's really interesting,

789
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: the idea that higher ceilings might sort of trigger activity

790
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: in the brain that says it's time to explore, time

791
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:06,239
Speaker 1: to map, time to time to get into it. But

792
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:10,480
Speaker 1: I also wonder how this this connects intention with the

793
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 1: idea that smaller spaces can sometimes be perceived as say, cozy,

794
00:43:15,080 --> 00:43:18,360
Speaker 1: Like the perception of coziness somehow seems like the opposite

795
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:21,960
Speaker 1: of an exit or avoidance motivation. And yet you can

796
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:25,000
Speaker 1: clearly think of times winning closed spaces are cozier than

797
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:28,319
Speaker 1: a big open space. Yeah, but they tend to when

798
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 1: I think of them, I tend to think of environments

799
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:31,919
Speaker 1: where I am going to like climb into a bed

800
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:34,920
Speaker 1: or sleeping bag or something, you know, as opposed to

801
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 1: somewhere where I'm going to engage in something more like work. Uh,

802
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:41,719
Speaker 1: you know, like if I'm gonna snuggle up with a

803
00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:44,399
Speaker 1: really good book, then yes, I might think of some

804
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: of being in some casket like chamber on a train

805
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:52,800
Speaker 1: or a ship or so forth. Yeah, that's an interesting

806
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:55,920
Speaker 1: that it has to do with what types of things

807
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:58,960
Speaker 1: you're about to do. Um. But like, but like, for

808
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:01,640
Speaker 1: instance of kitchen, I've never heard anyone say, oh, I

809
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:05,000
Speaker 1: wish I had a cozier kitchen in which to you know,

810
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:10,799
Speaker 1: engage my culinary exploration. No, people want bigger kitchens. They

811
00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:13,719
Speaker 1: probably envision a kitchen with a with you know, reasonably

812
00:44:13,800 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: high ceiling, probably maybe not a cathedral ceiling. But I

813
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 1: don't think anybody gets excited about a super tight little

814
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 1: ship galley of a of a kitchen. That's interesting. Yeah,

815
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 1: it's like it's almost like you want big spaces to

816
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:30,799
Speaker 1: to do work and to think about big questions and

817
00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 1: to think of you know, and to to explore ideas,

818
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:36,239
Speaker 1: and then you want small spaces in order to have

819
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 1: privacy and feel secure and sleep. Yeah. And I guess

820
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 1: it also has to do with the scale of the work, right.

821
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: It's one thing to think about, say, painting miniatures and

822
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: being in a tying cozy it's a space. But when

823
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 1: you're cooking, you're doing something that probably is making making

824
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:55,399
Speaker 1: a mess and engaging. So a few different appliances, etcetera. Well,

825
00:44:55,400 --> 00:44:56,879
Speaker 1: it may have to do with whether or not you're

826
00:44:56,880 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 1: trying to be creative. That'll come in and the study

827
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:00,880
Speaker 1: you want to talk about in a secon and but

828
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:04,600
Speaker 1: another thing that's intention here. I think, for example, Goldhagen

829
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: refers to some research that suggests, quite unsurprisingly that closed

830
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:12,840
Speaker 1: spaces give people a sense of refuge and security. Okay,

831
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:15,919
Speaker 1: that makes sense, um, But I think of how many

832
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:19,719
Speaker 1: like office workers, including maybe some people in this room,

833
00:45:20,160 --> 00:45:23,719
Speaker 1: you arned for the days of cubicles and little offices

834
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:27,440
Speaker 1: as opposed to the modern scourge of open office plans,

835
00:45:27,719 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 1: where you are supposed to on paper benefit from constant collaboration,

836
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 1: but in fact they just well, I mean, I don't

837
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 1: want to speak for everybody, but for many people they

838
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:39,839
Speaker 1: clearly just make you feel distracted and on edge all

839
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:42,360
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah. I was reading a little bit a

840
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 1: bit about about this as well, and it's one of

841
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 1: those things where you can find some some material to

842
00:45:48,080 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 1: back up either case basically, and you can find individuals,

843
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 1: I'm sure, with different experiences to back up either case.

844
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:55,720
Speaker 1: I also think it depends on what sort of work

845
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 1: you're in, Like to what extent is your work communal

846
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:02,440
Speaker 1: between individuals, or to what extent is it you know,

847
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:07,240
Speaker 1: is it a situation where this this individual is doing

848
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:09,319
Speaker 1: their own thing for extended periods of time and it's

849
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: better not to bother them. And that can vary. That

850
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 1: not only varies from person to person in company to company,

851
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 1: it can vary from department to department within a single

852
00:46:17,120 --> 00:46:21,080
Speaker 1: entity obviously, where maybe maybe the advertising department of a

853
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:24,320
Speaker 1: particular company is more about running from desk to desk

854
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:27,640
Speaker 1: and talking about what they're working on. Likewise, people have

855
00:46:27,680 --> 00:46:30,440
Speaker 1: more of a research role, might need to just be

856
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: you know, have the blinders on right. How much of

857
00:46:33,000 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 1: your job involves the need for deep work? Yeah, yeah, so,

858
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:39,200
Speaker 1: But obviously they are going to be different effects and

859
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 1: tendencies playing against each other in the design of interior spaces.

860
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:44,879
Speaker 1: There's clearly not a one size fits all, like all

861
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:49,080
Speaker 1: interior spaces should be like x UM. But yeah, one

862
00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: thing I was also wondering about with the idea of

863
00:46:52,239 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 1: like approach versus avoidance behaviors, exploration, motivation versus exit motivation.

864
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 1: You know, if you were were more likely to get

865
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:04,120
Speaker 1: the brain into exploration mode in rooms with high ceilings.

866
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 1: Could that have abstract implications? Could these exploration and exit

867
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 1: behaviors also lead to broader emotions, motivations, and cognitive potential?

868
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:15,439
Speaker 1: And I did find at least one study that would

869
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:19,160
Speaker 1: seem to support this. This was by Joan Myers, Levy

870
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: and Rui Jou published in the Journal of Consumer Research

871
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven called the Influence of Ceiling Height

872
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:28,520
Speaker 1: the Effects of priming on the type of processing that

873
00:47:28,600 --> 00:47:32,239
Speaker 1: people use. And so what happened here is that researchers

874
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:35,759
Speaker 1: found that even relatively small differences in ceiling heights, say

875
00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:37,840
Speaker 1: like the difference between an eight foot ceiling and a

876
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 1: tin foot ceiling, these had noticeable effects on psychology and cognition.

877
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:47,600
Speaker 1: UH not very surprisingly, rooms with higher ceilings primed people

878
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 1: to think about words and concepts related to freedom, whereas

879
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:54,760
Speaker 1: rooms with lower ceilings were more likely to prime people

880
00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 1: to think about words and concepts related to confinement. And

881
00:47:58,480 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: they measured this UH this timing effect by seeing, like

882
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:03,800
Speaker 1: what types of words people were more likely to solve?

883
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 1: Foreign puzzles like anagrams. A common way of testing, for

884
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 1: like priming on certain concepts and words. You know, are

885
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 1: are you already kind of like having this sort of

886
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:16,359
Speaker 1: thing in mind? Um? But more interestingly, the author has

887
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:20,839
Speaker 1: also suggested these broader cognitive effects that higher ceilings make

888
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:26,640
Speaker 1: people more likely to use abstract relational cognition, like thinking

889
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:32,240
Speaker 1: about the abstract relationships between ideas and things, whereas lower

890
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:34,759
Speaker 1: ceilings were more likely to make people think in terms

891
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 1: of concrete objects and specific details. And I can think

892
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:43,120
Speaker 1: if they're correct about this, this makes me think obviously

893
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:46,239
Speaker 1: that you could have different types of workspaces being more

894
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 1: suited to different kinds of work, Like the kind of

895
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:51,560
Speaker 1: the kind of work where you need to be creative

896
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:54,359
Speaker 1: and think abstract things, you might want to have a

897
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:56,359
Speaker 1: room with a big high ceiling. The kind of work

898
00:48:56,360 --> 00:49:00,000
Speaker 1: where you're focusing in on mi newt concrete details of things,

899
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:02,880
Speaker 1: you might want a smaller space with the lower ceiling. So,

900
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:07,160
Speaker 1: if I'm understanding this correctly, you're you're going to ask

901
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 1: our employers for custom offices in which there is a

902
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:14,480
Speaker 1: ceiling that can be manipulated via remote control. Sure, yeah,

903
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:17,400
Speaker 1: raising lower, Yeah, Yeah, that makes sense to me. Again,

904
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:20,640
Speaker 1: this does seem to roughly fit with personal experience, Like

905
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:23,080
Speaker 1: I can think of what happens when you go into

906
00:49:23,160 --> 00:49:25,759
Speaker 1: a cathedral or a palatial atmosphere. I mean it does

907
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:28,480
Speaker 1: tend to in a way sort of elevate one's thinking.

908
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:31,839
Speaker 1: You are more likely to think about big ideas in

909
00:49:31,880 --> 00:49:34,719
Speaker 1: there somehow, at least in my experience. No, that's that

910
00:49:34,719 --> 00:49:36,880
Speaker 1: would say, that's my experience as well, not only with

911
00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 1: with human made environments, but even we've we've talked before

912
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:44,120
Speaker 1: about say seeing the Grand Canyon or something like that.

913
00:49:44,160 --> 00:49:45,880
Speaker 1: You know, it is a lot to see a large

914
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:50,920
Speaker 1: empty space. That kind of environment summons, uh, you know,

915
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:56,320
Speaker 1: a certain amount of introspection and you know, thinking about

916
00:49:56,320 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 1: it eternity and so forth. Um, I mean being spaces

917
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:05,040
Speaker 1: have inspired big thoughts for some reason. Yeah. But at

918
00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:07,239
Speaker 1: the same time, I mean we were just talking about

919
00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:09,600
Speaker 1: what kinds of work are are small space is good for.

920
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:12,400
Speaker 1: I mean, I miss my cubicle from the old days,

921
00:50:12,960 --> 00:50:16,160
Speaker 1: especially at times when I want to like really zero

922
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:19,799
Speaker 1: in on, like editing a document. You know that it's

923
00:50:19,800 --> 00:50:23,160
Speaker 1: almost like the the enclosure helps you stay on task

924
00:50:23,320 --> 00:50:27,000
Speaker 1: with minute details of things. Yeah, it almost literally becomes

925
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:29,720
Speaker 1: like like the blinders of a horse, Like you can't

926
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:32,120
Speaker 1: just look up and see what everybody in the office

927
00:50:32,160 --> 00:50:34,680
Speaker 1: is doing, uh, you know, and and and gaze up

928
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:37,359
Speaker 1: and inspect every little slight movement that occurs in your

929
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:39,480
Speaker 1: peripheral vision. All right, on that note, we're going to

930
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:45,320
Speaker 1: take one more break, but we'll be right back. Alright,

931
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:49,040
Speaker 1: we're back. So we've been talking about the psychology of architecture,

932
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:53,400
Speaker 1: how the built environment, uh you know, influences us psychologically

933
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 1: and how it shapes our lives. One other thing I

934
00:50:56,040 --> 00:51:00,560
Speaker 1: was looking at was studies about color and Injuri spaces,

935
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:02,319
Speaker 1: because yeah, you have to paint it some color. You

936
00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:04,480
Speaker 1: have to pick out some color of carpet. Oh you

937
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:06,200
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to paint it. You could have just

938
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:09,040
Speaker 1: like say, exposed raw concrete. Right. Well, true, but even

939
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:11,880
Speaker 1: that is a choice. In coloration, it is. Uh So

940
00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 1: color psychology, we know we've talked about on the show before.

941
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 1: It's a big field with a lot of complicated and

942
00:51:16,680 --> 00:51:20,680
Speaker 1: sometimes conflicting results. I think it's important in color psychology.

943
00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:22,720
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess this is important for all things,

944
00:51:22,760 --> 00:51:26,239
Speaker 1: but for some reason it especially comes up in color psychology. That,

945
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:29,040
Speaker 1: like plenty of psychological effects, the effects of color on

946
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:33,000
Speaker 1: thinking emotion and motivation are not necessarily universal to the

947
00:51:33,040 --> 00:51:37,400
Speaker 1: human animal. They can be influenced by differences in cultural associations. Right, Like,

948
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:39,720
Speaker 1: A big one that I've read about before is red.

949
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:43,960
Speaker 1: Green and red have certain connotations generally an American and

950
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 1: Western um individuals, where you know, green is go, right

951
00:51:47,680 --> 00:51:50,040
Speaker 1: is stop? So green is good, red is bad. But

952
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:52,719
Speaker 1: you and so you might be inclined to utilize that

953
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:55,440
Speaker 1: in your technology and your app or what have you.

954
00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:58,360
Speaker 1: But then if you translate that app or technology to

955
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:03,560
Speaker 1: a Chinese market, where a red has a strongly uh

956
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:06,160
Speaker 1: you know, positive color, it is a very noble color,

957
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:09,200
Speaker 1: like you would not associate red with a negative outcome

958
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 1: in Chinese culture. Right, So, if you are actually using

959
00:52:13,120 --> 00:52:17,000
Speaker 1: color psychology research to shape the design of interior spaces,

960
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:20,480
Speaker 1: you would probably want to consider research done on like

961
00:52:20,560 --> 00:52:25,319
Speaker 1: cultures like the the culture where you're making your building, right, Um. So,

962
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:28,240
Speaker 1: one example of something that came across was a study

963
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:32,160
Speaker 1: from two thousand nine published in the journal Science by Ravi,

964
00:52:32,320 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 1: Meta and Ruiju called Blue or Red Exploring the effect

965
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:39,680
Speaker 1: of color on cognitive task performances. And this was a

966
00:52:39,719 --> 00:52:42,600
Speaker 1: study looking at the color the effects of color on

967
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:46,359
Speaker 1: cognitive performance without going deep into the details, all other

968
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:50,160
Speaker 1: things being equal, and they found that red backgrounds tend

969
00:52:50,239 --> 00:52:54,120
Speaker 1: to make us more likely to engage in avoidance behaviors.

970
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:56,960
Speaker 1: And this was done among North Americans, so that might

971
00:52:57,000 --> 00:52:59,359
Speaker 1: not be surprising that maybe you could have some like

972
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 1: stop sign stop light associations at work there. But that

973
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:09,279
Speaker 1: red also enhances performance on detail oriented tasks, such as

974
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:12,920
Speaker 1: specific recall of details in a memory exercise, like if

975
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:16,560
Speaker 1: I give you UM a list of words to remember,

976
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:20,799
Speaker 1: you will get more words right in remembering, remembering them

977
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:24,040
Speaker 1: and recalling them later with a red background, then with

978
00:53:24,080 --> 00:53:28,560
Speaker 1: another colored background. But meanwhile, they found that blue backgrounds

979
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:33,879
Speaker 1: tend to enhance performance on creative tasks e g. Coming

980
00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 1: up with a list of creative uses for a mundane

981
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:40,440
Speaker 1: object like a brick, though there was some subjective judgment

982
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:43,200
Speaker 1: involved in evaluating those responses. They had like a panel

983
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 1: of judges that were judging how creative the uses of

984
00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:49,080
Speaker 1: the brick worse UM. So you know, I wouldn't take

985
00:53:49,080 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 1: these results as ironclad, but if they're correct, if they're

986
00:53:51,640 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 1: onto something here. One interesting association is the idea of

987
00:53:56,880 --> 00:54:01,319
Speaker 1: blue again with openness leading to create ativity. So the

988
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:05,480
Speaker 1: idea of like blue environments, especially those with the same

989
00:54:05,600 --> 00:54:09,600
Speaker 1: kind of hue as a blue sky, making people more creative,

990
00:54:09,640 --> 00:54:11,600
Speaker 1: and that might seem to connect to the idea of

991
00:54:11,600 --> 00:54:15,480
Speaker 1: being more creative or exploration oriented in open spaces rooms

992
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:20,440
Speaker 1: with ti high ceilings. Now we mentioned earlier educational outcomes,

993
00:54:20,440 --> 00:54:23,719
Speaker 1: One interesting thing I was reading was another review of

994
00:54:23,760 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 1: the gold Hagen book. I was reading an Education Week

995
00:54:26,680 --> 00:54:30,280
Speaker 1: by an author named Sir John George, and this piece

996
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:33,320
Speaker 1: made reference to one of the most startling research findings

997
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:35,799
Speaker 1: that Goldhagen sites in in her book, which is as

998
00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:38,640
Speaker 1: as expressed by the author of this piece quote one

999
00:54:38,719 --> 00:54:42,880
Speaker 1: study of thirty four different British schools where the six

1000
00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:50,120
Speaker 1: design parameters of color, choice, complexity, flexibility, light, and connectivity

1001
00:54:50,239 --> 00:54:54,440
Speaker 1: affected the students learning progress by twenty five percent. The

1002
00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:57,879
Speaker 1: difference in learning between the best and worst design classrooms

1003
00:54:57,920 --> 00:55:00,759
Speaker 1: was equal to the progress of an average student over

1004
00:55:00,800 --> 00:55:05,920
Speaker 1: an entire academic year. Yeah, and so with that kind

1005
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:08,759
Speaker 1: of study, obviously an effect of that size, I would

1006
00:55:08,800 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 1: be inclined to be skeptical about. You know, you know,

1007
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:13,680
Speaker 1: you want to see that replicated a good amount. But

1008
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:18,200
Speaker 1: even if the study somehow overstates the effect, even if

1009
00:55:18,239 --> 00:55:22,160
Speaker 1: the effect were only half that that that's an amazing difference. Um.

1010
00:55:22,360 --> 00:55:25,360
Speaker 1: So the author of this piece suggests that some extrapolations

1011
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:28,399
Speaker 1: from this research should be used in schools. Just one

1012
00:55:28,440 --> 00:55:31,240
Speaker 1: example they give is, maybe is it a good idea

1013
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:34,480
Speaker 1: when students misbehave to send them to a room that

1014
00:55:34,640 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: is like almost intentionally made to bore them on purpose,

1015
00:55:38,280 --> 00:55:40,600
Speaker 1: and you go to the detention room where you can

1016
00:55:40,640 --> 00:55:43,640
Speaker 1: sit and do nothing. Um, I mean, maybe it would

1017
00:55:43,680 --> 00:55:47,640
Speaker 1: be better to have a kind of like reparative discipline

1018
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:51,359
Speaker 1: system where instead students who misbehave are sent to an

1019
00:55:51,360 --> 00:55:54,640
Speaker 1: outdoor green space with some vegetation in it. That that

1020
00:55:54,800 --> 00:55:57,560
Speaker 1: with the free range children, the free range children exactly.

1021
00:55:57,760 --> 00:56:00,480
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's an interesting suggestion to me. I

1022
00:56:00,880 --> 00:56:03,640
Speaker 1: don't see any harm in trying things like that. Absolutely.

1023
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:05,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I know where I would rather go if

1024
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:08,960
Speaker 1: I were sent to detention, right, The outdoor detention garden

1025
00:56:09,040 --> 00:56:13,400
Speaker 1: sounded much better than the detention chamber. Another specific example

1026
00:56:13,440 --> 00:56:16,120
Speaker 1: about built environments from gold Higgen's book that the author

1027
00:56:16,160 --> 00:56:18,840
Speaker 1: here mentions, uh, and I thought this was interesting was

1028
00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:22,920
Speaker 1: that there are apparently apparently some documented benefits to quote

1029
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:28,360
Speaker 1: repeating patterns with respits from that same pattern which can

1030
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:33,120
Speaker 1: stimulate problem solving capacity. And this is very specific and

1031
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:35,160
Speaker 1: I like it. I think I know exactly what this

1032
00:56:35,239 --> 00:56:38,359
Speaker 1: is referring to. Like when you see a building with

1033
00:56:38,680 --> 00:56:43,880
Speaker 1: pleasing irregularity in patterned elements, you know, so you have

1034
00:56:44,600 --> 00:56:46,480
Speaker 1: I guess an example would be like you say you've

1035
00:56:46,480 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 1: got a row of windows. You've got seven windows with alcoves,

1036
00:56:49,480 --> 00:56:51,880
Speaker 1: all in a row, and then suddenly where you'd expect

1037
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:54,480
Speaker 1: the next one, there's not what. There's like a protruding

1038
00:56:54,560 --> 00:56:58,120
Speaker 1: feature rather than a window, and then the windows begin again.

1039
00:56:58,120 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 1: And maybe this happens at different levels with different irregular

1040
00:57:01,800 --> 00:57:04,520
Speaker 1: variation in that pattern. This reminds me of some of

1041
00:57:04,520 --> 00:57:06,440
Speaker 1: what we talked about in our episode of the Gods

1042
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:10,600
Speaker 1: must be Counterintuitive, about how a certain amount of counter

1043
00:57:10,960 --> 00:57:15,480
Speaker 1: intuitive design is admirable in our myths and our stories

1044
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:19,280
Speaker 1: and therefore it would make sense in our architecture as well. Yes. Uh,

1045
00:57:19,640 --> 00:57:22,200
Speaker 1: the idea there, I think is that that kind of

1046
00:57:22,240 --> 00:57:25,280
Speaker 1: like it was like, they had to be minimally counter into. Yes,

1047
00:57:25,320 --> 00:57:28,760
Speaker 1: they can't be so counterintuitive that it just feels random.

1048
00:57:29,240 --> 00:57:33,000
Speaker 1: It needs to feel mostly structured, but with enough weirdness

1049
00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:36,360
Speaker 1: that it sticks in the memory. Yeah, yeah, And if

1050
00:57:36,360 --> 00:57:38,400
Speaker 1: you're looking at it like the natural environment, that makes

1051
00:57:38,400 --> 00:57:42,400
Speaker 1: sense too, Right, if you're considering a large hill to

1052
00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:44,600
Speaker 1: climb and you're sort of plotting your course up there,

1053
00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:47,600
Speaker 1: it makes sense that some of the visible ledges would

1054
00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:51,520
Speaker 1: be more pronounced than others, are more desirable or more interesting,

1055
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:55,080
Speaker 1: Like there would be varied features and not, and there

1056
00:57:55,120 --> 00:57:58,280
Speaker 1: would be some features that might be more desirable than others. Yeah,

1057
00:57:58,720 --> 00:58:01,000
Speaker 1: Like you know, it's something that interesting to look at

1058
00:58:01,040 --> 00:58:04,480
Speaker 1: with big buildings, skyscrapers and whatnot, where you see something

1059
00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:06,880
Speaker 1: that is you see something that's an element or that

1060
00:58:06,960 --> 00:58:08,720
Speaker 1: maybe it's just the very top and maybe it's a

1061
00:58:08,760 --> 00:58:11,520
Speaker 1: penthouse or something like that, but it does you start

1062
00:58:11,560 --> 00:58:14,520
Speaker 1: stirring your mind. You're like, what kind of person lives there?

1063
00:58:15,360 --> 00:58:18,040
Speaker 1: Or what office is that? Who has access to that

1064
00:58:18,120 --> 00:58:20,960
Speaker 1: space in the building? Um? And then what is it

1065
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:23,040
Speaker 1: like to stand there? I have I don't know if

1066
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:25,720
Speaker 1: I'm alone in this, but I have have frequently had

1067
00:58:26,120 --> 00:58:29,560
Speaker 1: had weird dreams where I am, especially at a former

1068
00:58:29,600 --> 00:58:31,680
Speaker 1: location that we had where we had access to an

1069
00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:35,120
Speaker 1: outside terrace at our building. I would have dreams that

1070
00:58:35,240 --> 00:58:37,040
Speaker 1: where I would be it would be in in different

1071
00:58:37,160 --> 00:58:43,480
Speaker 1: strange skyscrapers, and and accessing terraces on those skyscrapers, uh

1072
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:45,560
Speaker 1: and and then looking out and it was like an

1073
00:58:45,640 --> 00:58:48,040
Speaker 1: achievement to you know. It wasn't like I was sneaking in,

1074
00:58:48,080 --> 00:58:50,360
Speaker 1: but it was just it was I felt a sense

1075
00:58:50,360 --> 00:58:53,880
Speaker 1: of accomplishment by reaching those terraces. I haven't had those

1076
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:57,040
Speaker 1: specific dreams, but as somebody who ever since I was

1077
00:58:57,080 --> 00:59:00,320
Speaker 1: a kid has loved to climb up on things. As

1078
00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:03,160
Speaker 1: an adult, I wish it were more socially acceptable to

1079
00:59:03,200 --> 00:59:06,040
Speaker 1: just climb up on things that with your inner goat.

1080
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:10,120
Speaker 1: I totally identify with that. Not the dreams, but I

1081
00:59:10,480 --> 00:59:13,760
Speaker 1: know the feeling. Yeah, like if I see a fancy terrorists,

1082
00:59:13,880 --> 00:59:15,720
Speaker 1: I mean I want to stand up there. So I'm

1083
00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:18,120
Speaker 1: you know, kind of terrified of heights, but I still

1084
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:20,600
Speaker 1: I still want to stand on on that terrorist. For

1085
00:59:20,640 --> 00:59:23,040
Speaker 1: some reason. This is funny. I have so many other

1086
00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:26,720
Speaker 1: neuroses and terrors, but for some reason I like heights. Yeah,

1087
00:59:26,760 --> 00:59:28,800
Speaker 1: it's it's it's your inner goat. I think it's the

1088
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:34,160
Speaker 1: goat like desire to to stand atop something and look about. Now,

1089
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:36,960
Speaker 1: there's one last thing I wanted to move to before

1090
00:59:37,080 --> 00:59:39,919
Speaker 1: we close out this first part of the discussion here,

1091
00:59:40,040 --> 00:59:43,920
Speaker 1: and it was a question about I wonder if there

1092
00:59:43,960 --> 00:59:49,240
Speaker 1: are differences in um sort of the professional aesthetics of

1093
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:54,680
Speaker 1: architecture versus the actual preferences, like what's good for everyday people.

1094
00:59:55,360 --> 00:59:56,960
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about this because I was just

1095
00:59:57,000 --> 01:00:00,600
Speaker 1: looking at one specific study. Uh it's a fairly simple

1096
01:00:00,640 --> 01:00:02,800
Speaker 1: example and by no means proves the case, but it

1097
01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:05,120
Speaker 1: was a little bit interesting to me. This is a

1098
01:00:05,160 --> 01:00:10,080
Speaker 1: study by Sybil does Kre and Maryland Read in Environment

1099
01:00:10,120 --> 01:00:13,920
Speaker 1: and Behavior from two thousand twelve called Furniture forms and

1100
01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:18,680
Speaker 1: their influence on our emotional responses toward interior environments. So, Robert,

1101
01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:20,760
Speaker 1: I've got some images for you to look at. Here.

1102
01:00:20,800 --> 01:00:25,320
Speaker 1: We're looking at pictures of different furniture designs. Some are rectilinear,

1103
01:00:25,760 --> 01:00:28,800
Speaker 1: meaning you've got like straight, clean lines and right angles,

1104
01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:33,280
Speaker 1: and some are curvilinear, meaning that they have soft, rounded edges.

1105
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:39,480
Speaker 1: Which of these designs looks more hip? Uh? Well, I

1106
01:00:39,520 --> 01:00:41,360
Speaker 1: don't know. That's kind of loaded question, you know, like

1107
01:00:42,040 --> 01:00:44,600
Speaker 1: hip in a way where I like it, or hip

1108
01:00:44,640 --> 01:00:47,440
Speaker 1: in a way where I feel like the predominant taste

1109
01:00:47,440 --> 01:00:52,640
Speaker 1: makers in society would like it architecturally tasteful. Okay, I'm

1110
01:00:52,640 --> 01:00:57,120
Speaker 1: gonna between rounded and straight edge. Yeah, I'm gonna go

1111
01:00:57,200 --> 01:00:59,360
Speaker 1: straight edge. Yeah, I would think the same thing, And

1112
01:00:59,520 --> 01:01:01,920
Speaker 1: maybe not everyone would agree. But my hunch is that

1113
01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:05,080
Speaker 1: the clean lines and the right angles of the rectilineal

1114
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:09,160
Speaker 1: furniture would be considered a superior design by pros like

1115
01:01:09,480 --> 01:01:12,400
Speaker 1: people who work in design. It looks more modern, it

1116
01:01:12,400 --> 01:01:15,040
Speaker 1: looks more clean, it looks more tasteful. It looks like

1117
01:01:15,080 --> 01:01:17,120
Speaker 1: the kind of furniture you would see in like a

1118
01:01:17,240 --> 01:01:21,000
Speaker 1: cool I don't know, in like some hip furniture store

1119
01:01:21,040 --> 01:01:24,720
Speaker 1: that's selling cool furniture. The rounded stuff honestly looks like

1120
01:01:24,760 --> 01:01:28,360
Speaker 1: something I would see in a doctor's waiting room. Yes,

1121
01:01:28,400 --> 01:01:31,360
Speaker 1: the rounded edges, I think could be conceived perceived as

1122
01:01:31,440 --> 01:01:34,360
Speaker 1: kind of kitchy, right, They don't look like the choice

1123
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:37,240
Speaker 1: of interior design professionals, or at least you know. I

1124
01:01:37,240 --> 01:01:39,640
Speaker 1: don't know for sure, but that's my guests. But this

1125
01:01:39,720 --> 01:01:44,160
Speaker 1: simple survey found that the images containing curveline ear couches

1126
01:01:44,640 --> 01:01:47,880
Speaker 1: these rounded edges made people feel more of a number

1127
01:01:47,880 --> 01:01:51,840
Speaker 1: of positive emotions. People felt happier, people felt more hopeful,

1128
01:01:52,240 --> 01:01:55,520
Speaker 1: more comfortable looking at those kind of rooms and imagining

1129
01:01:55,560 --> 01:01:57,680
Speaker 1: being in those kind of rooms, then they did with

1130
01:01:57,760 --> 01:02:01,840
Speaker 1: the right angled furniture. So I wonder, if this is correct,

1131
01:02:01,920 --> 01:02:04,520
Speaker 1: could a similar thing be true of our buildings. Could

1132
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 1: there be two issues? Actually, One is that often buildings

1133
01:02:08,160 --> 01:02:11,800
Speaker 1: are designed in a kind of careless, cost cutting way

1134
01:02:11,840 --> 01:02:15,800
Speaker 1: with little attention to aesthetics, and how that those aesthetics

1135
01:02:16,240 --> 01:02:20,040
Speaker 1: really impact our brains and our emotional lives. But perhaps

1136
01:02:20,040 --> 01:02:24,280
Speaker 1: there's another thing that even when aesthetics have built environments

1137
01:02:24,320 --> 01:02:28,040
Speaker 1: are taken into account. I wonder if sometimes they're oriented

1138
01:02:28,080 --> 01:02:32,440
Speaker 1: towards some like esoteric design standard that is appreciated by

1139
01:02:32,480 --> 01:02:34,800
Speaker 1: a small group of people who are deep in the

1140
01:02:34,840 --> 01:02:38,160
Speaker 1: world of architecture and design, but maybe not towards the

1141
01:02:38,240 --> 01:02:41,720
Speaker 1: maximum psychological benefit of people who live and work in

1142
01:02:41,720 --> 01:02:44,560
Speaker 1: in and around these buildings. Does that make sense? Yeah,

1143
01:02:44,600 --> 01:02:49,680
Speaker 1: I believe so. For instance, the taste of the individual

1144
01:02:50,600 --> 01:02:53,479
Speaker 1: choosing to layout for an office versus the individual taste

1145
01:02:53,520 --> 01:02:55,560
Speaker 1: of that people working in an office, well yeah, I

1146
01:02:55,560 --> 01:02:58,320
Speaker 1: mean it could be that like a certain thing looks

1147
01:02:58,520 --> 01:03:01,720
Speaker 1: cool when your designing an interior space, but then it's

1148
01:03:01,760 --> 01:03:05,760
Speaker 1: not actually great to live in. Yeah. Yeah. And with

1149
01:03:05,800 --> 01:03:09,080
Speaker 1: the sort of like planning an office layout example, I

1150
01:03:09,080 --> 01:03:12,360
Speaker 1: feel like it's such a different world, right, because on

1151
01:03:12,360 --> 01:03:14,280
Speaker 1: one hand, someone is saying, this is what I want

1152
01:03:14,280 --> 01:03:17,360
Speaker 1: the whole office to look like. This is the you know,

1153
01:03:17,400 --> 01:03:20,360
Speaker 1: the blueprint of the office on paper, and that's different

1154
01:03:20,400 --> 01:03:23,960
Speaker 1: than the experience of having one particular corner of the

1155
01:03:24,040 --> 01:03:27,880
Speaker 1: office two that is yours or has been assigned to you,

1156
01:03:28,160 --> 01:03:31,680
Speaker 1: and this is where you are working. Um Like, it's

1157
01:03:31,720 --> 01:03:34,760
Speaker 1: just a it's a different viewpoint one the broader view

1158
01:03:35,200 --> 01:03:36,880
Speaker 1: and and of course there are other factors as well,

1159
01:03:36,880 --> 01:03:39,160
Speaker 1: like if you're designing the whole office, you might be

1160
01:03:39,200 --> 01:03:42,040
Speaker 1: thinking about that individual who walks in and sees the

1161
01:03:42,080 --> 01:03:44,440
Speaker 1: whole office for the first time. It's more about impressing

1162
01:03:44,520 --> 01:03:48,280
Speaker 1: that individual than than making the you know, the worker,

1163
01:03:48,400 --> 01:03:51,000
Speaker 1: the employee happy. Yeah, this is something I would definitely

1164
01:03:51,080 --> 01:03:53,400
Speaker 1: like to actually hear from architects on what are your

1165
01:03:53,400 --> 01:03:56,280
Speaker 1: thoughts about this. Alright, we're gonna go ahead and call

1166
01:03:56,440 --> 01:03:58,800
Speaker 1: this episode, but we will be back in which we

1167
01:03:58,880 --> 01:04:02,360
Speaker 1: will discuss architecture a good bit more. We will talk

1168
01:04:02,400 --> 01:04:07,520
Speaker 1: about brutal, cursed, and hostile architecture. Especially in the meantime,

1169
01:04:07,560 --> 01:04:09,200
Speaker 1: if you want to check out more episodes of Stuff

1170
01:04:09,200 --> 01:04:10,680
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, you know where to find them.

1171
01:04:10,720 --> 01:04:12,960
Speaker 1: Heading over to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1172
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:15,560
Speaker 1: That's the mother ship, that's where the episodes reside, but

1173
01:04:15,680 --> 01:04:18,840
Speaker 1: these episodes reside elsewhere as well. Anywhere you get a

1174
01:04:18,840 --> 01:04:21,520
Speaker 1: podcast these days, you will find us and wherever that

1175
01:04:21,560 --> 01:04:25,120
Speaker 1: happens to be. Uh, just to help us out, leave

1176
01:04:25,360 --> 01:04:29,280
Speaker 1: a nice review, give us a nice array of stars,

1177
01:04:29,320 --> 01:04:32,320
Speaker 1: so you know, whatever the maximum is will do. Uh.

1178
01:04:32,320 --> 01:04:34,880
Speaker 1: That's a great way to support the show. Likewise, what

1179
01:04:34,960 --> 01:04:37,640
Speaker 1: we have a merchandise store still up and running. If

1180
01:04:37,680 --> 01:04:41,240
Speaker 1: you have any holiday uh gifts you would like to

1181
01:04:41,720 --> 01:04:45,240
Speaker 1: obtain for yourself or others, that's another way to support

1182
01:04:45,240 --> 01:04:48,360
Speaker 1: the show. But generally, just tell folks about us. That

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01:04:48,520 --> 01:04:52,200
Speaker 1: is probably the best way to spread the word. Huge

1184
01:04:52,240 --> 01:04:55,920
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

1185
01:04:56,280 --> 01:04:57,680
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1186
01:04:57,720 --> 01:05:00,400
Speaker 1: with feedback on this show or any other to you, uh,

1187
01:05:00,600 --> 01:05:03,240
Speaker 1: suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1188
01:05:03,400 --> 01:05:06,320
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact. That's Stuff to Blow

1189
01:05:06,360 --> 01:05:16,200
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1190
01:05:16,240 --> 01:05:18,560
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1191
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