Design Preferences

Beautiful things are often preferred, and research recently completed at Vanderbilt indicates that there may sometimes be good, biological reasons for that.  Valet and his team have learned that “the uglier a flower or weed, the more allergy-inducing its pollen tends to be . . . ‘The relationship between allergy-causing pollens and their flowers is something like a beauty pageant,’ Valet said.

Kemp and Williams analyzed business meetings in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).  What they learned is useful to people developing work environments in the UAE and neighboring countries with similar business behavior.  Kemp and Williams found that “the Gulf Arab region offers an eclectic mix of different cross-cultural interactions, when business meetings are being conducted. Using . . . data about [scheduled] meetings held in three large organizations, each with a diverse cross-cultural workforce . . .

Many athletes choose to wear red while competing.  Farrelly, Slater, Elliott, Walden, and Wetherell set out to learn more about athletes and red.  They found that “males who chose red as their color in a competitive task had higher testosterone levels than other males who chose blue . . . . Choosing to wear red ‘may, unconsciously, signal something about their competitive nature, and it may well be something that affects how their opponents respond,’ Farrelly explains.”

How does building green influence commercial property values?  The answer to this question suggests the psychological implications of green design and construction.  Chegut, Eichholtz, and Kok found that “over the 2000–09 period, the expanding supply of green buildings within a given London neighbourhood had a positive impact on average rents and prices, but reduced rents and prices for environmentally certified real estate. The results suggest that there is a gentrification effect from green buildings.”

The Society of College and University Planning (SCUP) awarded its Chapman Prize to Susan Painter, Janice Fournier, Caryn Grape, Phyllis Grummon, Jill Morelli, Susan Whitmer, and Joseph Cevetello, and they used the prize money to research how libraries (and library design) can best serve current and potential users.  SCUP quotes from their soon to be released monograph, “Research on Learning Space Design:  Present State, Future Direc

Knowledge workers sit too much.  Research has shown that their sedentary habits are bad for their physical and mental well-being – but if workers have the opportunity to stand while working, will they?

Integrating information from a variety of reputable sources, freshome created an interesting infographic detailing important information about future homes.  Economic and environmental concerns have launched a small home movement, for example, and the average new home is expected to be 10% smaller by 2015 than it is now.  Increasing numbers of single-person households also support to this trend.