The Garden Court at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco is a place that works because it graciously applies multiple principles of environmental neuropsychology.
The space is stuffed full of natural light because its roof is a huge skylight. Spending time in natural light indoors has been directly linked to enhanced cognitive performance, which makes the Garden Court a fine space for business meetings, and also to being in a better mood, which has been tied to augmented creative thinking and also to getting along better with other people, just for starters. All these benefits of natural light are diminished when that daylight comes paired with glare, but that doesn’t seem to be much of a problem in the Garden Court.
The Garden Court gives people in the space plenty of options, and exercising environmental control by selecting from use choices is really important for human wellbeing. A number of different seating areas, for group or solo use, are available, and some of those seats even have high backs. Those higher backs help people feel secure as they look out over their nearby world. This sort of feel-safe view makes people very very comfortable and is an important tenet of biophilic design. People can get the same sort of high-comfort feeling in the colonnaded area surrounding the open space in the Garden Court.
The colors in use and the just-right number of plants in view from any seat in the Garden Court are also relaxing; and seeing all those green leafy plants also helps with mental refreshment.
The high ceiling in the Garden Court cues users to think of relatively more formal situations and that keeps people on their good behavior—which in turn helps maintain relatively subdued noise levels in the Garden Court.
Like many a classical plaza, the Garden Court boosts users’ wellbeing, whether they’re in a business meeting, spending time mingling with friends or colleagues, or savoring time by themselves.