A warm place
Our home should be the place we feel most at ease, where we are relaxed and comfortable, free to be ourselves away from the wider world. While the factors that turn a house into a home are to a large extent dependent on the individual, some commonalities exist that contribute to a building’s ability to make us feel safe, and both physically and mentally comfortable.
A relatively new field of study, environmental psychology examines the effects of our surroundings on our mood and psychological state. Architectural psychology applies this approach to the built environment specifically, to assess the direct effects that architecture can have on the wellbeing of the occupants. Generally speaking, light, openness and views of natural surroundings are seen as positive factors, while darkness and enclosed spaces may promote stress, exhaustion and even physical discomfort.
If architecture can create an underlying air of oppressiveness, how does this affect the inhabitants of a house over time? Can buildings be responsible for low level psychological or physiological harm, causing neglect of that building which in turn heightens the effect of the original design, creating a spiral of decay for the building—and for its occupants?
