by Brad Powell

Interior design: the planning of interior environments, the effectiveness of which depends on the suitability for their intended use, reflecting an understanding of human-environment interactions.

– Brad Powell

10.11.10 | We know that young people go to design school because they are attracted to the creation of pleasing spaces. There, they are disabused of the notion that their artistic talents are sufficient for their intended vocation, and they learn that a great deal about information gathering, analysis and synthesis, together with some communication and other people skills are necessary in the work-world. Still, the delight one has for space creation carries forward for the first 10-15 years of practice, and in fact, never dies, but gradually takes its appropriate place, being one of many areas of concern for interior design professionals.

Our advocacy – of a shift of the balance from aesthetics to a more rounded consideration of human-environment responses – is not intended to slight the great natural appeal of aesthetics of the human environment. No amount of evidenced-based or scientific knowledge will replace the particular talents, training and experience of qualified interior designers. Knowledge is an aid, a necessary input, perhaps even a constraint, not a superseding element. As noted in part 3 of this series, the particular talent of designers is to create an inspiring physical reality, working with the important constraints that should be a part of any programming. If I were to formulate a definition of interior design to characterize this aspect of the field, it would read something like this:

Interior design is the design of interiors consistent with a client’s desires through the creative and empathetic application of the fine arts to create protective, supportive and inspiring interiors.

[Note: Empathy = the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it.]

My view is that the talents and resources of people with this ability are precious gifts that are greatly underused. The ability to almost naturally absorb, adapt ideas picked up through day-to-day living and use the results to create three dimensional spaces that inspire, provide comfort and a sense of place or physical and psychological orientation is a wonderful human capability the fruits of which only a small population enjoys.

Design will always have a Big D Design connotation as its most salient aspect for many interior environments. While few other than students of design and its history seem to know precisely what this means, some people seem to know it when they see it, while others appear to be the visual equivalent of tone deaf. (I state this as a fact, not as a pejorative description.) The mystery will always be there, just as the mystery of musical composition will remain for most of us, no mater how much we enjoy music or learn about staffs or clefts, notes, chords, chord progressions, musical forms, and so on.

Nonetheless, aesthetics applied to the interior environment can be analyzed to excellent effect and should be explored just as any other stimulus for humans.

Analysis of Aesthetics

Can aesthetics be analyzed? For better or for worse, people have been doing this for millennia, starting with say, with Aristotle’s thoughts on aesthetics and on to the numerous journals of aesthetics and art criticism. From the ancients to the present time, people have looked at aesthetics and their effects, both from a philosophical and historical point of view, and as a proper subject of psychology, that is, the human response to aesthetic offerings.

The development of environmental and evolutionary psychology as distinct fields in the last 50 years has raised the importance and value of a design approach embracing more fully the study of human-environment interactions. The study of ecosystems and the importance humans place on the overall workings of interior environments has expanded the study of design to one that is increasingly holistic, and, in a patchwork way, expresses concern for the natural environment. (Interestingly, there seems to be more concern for the impact of the built environment upon the natural environment than for the impact of the built environment on humans.) (For a helpful summary, see Aesthetics and Evolutionary Psychology, by Denis Dutton from the The Oxford Handbook for Aesthetics, edited by Jerrold Levinson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) is set forth athttp://www.denisdutton.com/aesthetics_&_evolutionary_psychology.htm

Mr. Dutton illustrates some of the value of psychological evaluation of human-environmental interplay by citing a 1992 study supporting a constant theme by interior designers:

One of the most important considerations in the survival of any organism is habitat selection. Until the development of cities 10,000 years ago, human life was mostly nomadic. Finding desirable conditions for survival, particularly with an eye towards potential food and predators, would have selectively affected the human response to landscape – the capacity of landscape types to evoke positive emotions, rejection, inquisitiveness, and a desire to explore, or a general sense of comfort.

Responses to landscape types have been tested in an experiment in which standardized photographs of landscape types were shown to people of different ages and in different countries: deciduous forest, tropical forest, open savannah with trees, coniferous forest, and desert. Among adults, no category stood out as preferred (except that the desert landscape fell slightly below the preference rating of the others).

However, when the experiment was applied to young children, it was found that they showed a marked preference for savannahs with trees: exactly the East African landscape where much early human evolution took place (Orians and Heerwagen 1992). Beyond a liking for savannas, there is a general preference for landscapes with

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• water
• a variety of open and wooded space (indicating places to hide and places for game to hide)
• trees that fork near the ground (provide escape possibilities) with fruiting potential a meter or two from the ground
• vistas that recede in the distance, including a path or river that bends out of view but invites exploration
• the direct presence or implication of game animals
• variegated cloud patterns.

The savannah environment is in fact a singularly food-rich environment (calculated in terms of kilograms of protein per square kilometre), and highly desirable for a hunter-gatherer way of life. Not surprisingly, these are the very elements we see repeated endlessly in both calendar art and in the design of public parks worldwide.(Formatting added.)

And, of course, we are aware of the many studies indicating the healing power of natural environments and daylight.

In addressing aesthetics, we must move beyond the obvious to the core considerations of human emotional and arousal responses. This is a complicated area involving a great intertwining of heritable and cultural factors. Yet there are common patterns. Emotions are the reaction to the sensory inputs and affect how we proceed with what we are doing. (Sally Augustin, Place Advantage, John Wiley & Sons, 2009, pp 38-39) In short, emotions mediate between the givens (the environment and individual personality) and the behavior. (See also Environmental Psychology For Design, DAK Kopec, Fairchild Publications 2006, p. 30.) With emotions highly dependent upon individual constitutional differences, individual experiences and cultural settings, it is easy to see that design for emotional response can be quite complex.

As indicated in the RD Connections column, Describing Emotional Response to Place, (officeinsight 9.20.10) emotions have strength and range. (See alsoEnvironmental Psychology For Design, DAK Kopec, Fairchild Publications 2006, pp 30-33) Accordingly, our focus cannot be limited to passing judgments regarding style and personal or group preferences, but must be extended to a complete range of emotions including those commonly considered in the built environment, such as “a sense of place.” As described in the RD column cited above, researchers have developed a double axis schema to help describe the emotional impact of a space, with the horizontal axis ranging from unpleasant on the left to pleasant on the right and the vertical axis from energizing on the top to boring at the bottom.

We can also view the subject of aesthetics on a more concrete level, in the everyday workplace. Consider, for a moment, our series, Haworth Presents, The Interfaces of Interior Design, in particular, Summary and Commentary: Part 3, officeinsight 5.43.10. There, Ed Chuckla of Disney said that he was presently dealing with “a lot of really cool, big buildings. The most interesting thing about it has been thinking about the interior world in which we live.” Indeed, he said his present challenge was to figure out how Disney does interiors.

“I look at Disney's portfolio and I wonder if there’s a common bad thread in what we do, otherwise we wouldn’t end up with all the banal product we have. Step in the doors of our buildings and I promise you, they look like insurance companies. It is the antithesis of a creative environment. Here we are, trying to sell ourselves as the epicenter of the creative world, but on the inside our world looks like all that’s boring about the workplace.”

An interesting discussion followed in which Mr. Chuckla and some of the most senior and admired interior designers in the U.S. discussed the procedures that resulted in buildings that look, in Mr. Chuckla’s language, “wonderful outside, and then you go into a dark box that only holds you for a few minutes; the inside doesn’t really matter.”

Not one of the designers offered the thought that the interiors were the best, or even a good design for their purpose. The typical trade press presentation of a project seems to view things along similar lines. One sees highly developed and creative uses of products and materials, with maybe some LEED-generating features thrown in. Almost uniformly, this splendor is concentrated in the public areas of the workplace, while the work-areas, relatively neutral and subdued, are not often portrayed. This is the same sort of impression that one finds in the plethora of design awards made throughout the year.

It is as if the actual work areas, those parts that are inhabited most of the time – and hence would be expected to have the greatest impact on the corporation and its activities (through its employees) – are neglected almost as a pit of shame, the “black box” referred to Mr. Chuckla.

As an explanation, some may suggest that it is too expensive – or not worth the expense – to carry the artistic themes throughout the workplace. Rather, the excitement should be saved for visitors and guests, sort of like wearing the expensive clothes and jewelry for the annual charity ball.

But are we sure that there is not a more satisfying and instructive perspective – an analysis of the human-environment interaction?

Let us approach this scenario from a human-environment interaction perspective. We wonder whether investigators might determine that much of the attractiveness of the best interior spaces is due to the arousal generated by their novelty (assuming an otherwise pleasing space). This novelty works for occasional visitors of a space, but the same environment in a quotidian work area would soon become familiar and non-arousing, losing the benefits sought by the investment. Moreover, a more neutral design for a work-area, devoid of remarkable features, might better suit a much larger and diverse population, being free of potentially annoying/disruptive elements. Have you noticed that almost all work areas in A&D firms are remarkably bland: rows of white tables and benches, maybe a little paneling, with monitors and chairs (mostly black) providing the break for the monotony. And these are the folks who know what they are doing.

With this deeper understanding, designers would have greater incentive to explore more transient, easily changed environments for work areas, such as those that could be changed by various light effects, screening and other inexpensive changes, including rotation of art. Then again, we could investigate whether the growth of a plant under the special care of a specified worker could provide the arousal needed to heightened work activity. (See sidebar: Hawthorne Effect)

Even more interesting is the thought that, for an organization’s workers, those who reside in a particular space on a regular basis, the optimum environment would comprise a rather straightforward work environment coupled with copious landscape views of natural environments, such as the savannas selected by children, or the other preferred environmental features. (Let nature do the changing.) This, of course, plays into the biophilia movement, which studies human’s nature predilection for the natural environment.

These, of course, are just a couple of simple examples of how the analysis of various aesthetic affects can suggest further avenues of design. Many studies have been done and are being done that could be incorporated in interior design to good effect.