The Poetry Foundation in Chicago is a place that works. “Let me count the ways,” as Elizabeth Barrett Browning has famously said.

The building, designed by John Ronan Architects, opened in June 2011. It’s an optimal environment to celebrate poetry—even on cold, cloudy almost-spring days like the one on which I visited it. Starting with the sidewalk, passersby are intrigued by views into the courtyard and the rest of the building. The very tall zinc wall between the sidewalk and that courtyard, is punctured by thousands of round holes that invite the curious to move in for a closer look, just as if you were to put your eye against a keyhole and see into a room. This “peeking” experience generates pleasant anticipation. Once you enter the courtyard, the wall helps to keep the city hustle-bustle at bay.

Upon entering the building, you pass through a well-ordered and luxuriously planted courtyard. Gazing out at this space from inside helps you restock your mental energy and focus your thoughts. The generous windows facing the courtyard make it hard not to look outside.

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I dropped by to visit the “Making Room” show at the Museum of the City of New York, which features a mock-up of a 325 square foot apartment. I was curious to see the “micro-studio” with its handy tuck-away dining table and chair that turns into a ladder to reach high-up storage and fold-down to a full size Murphy bed that fills the space otherwise taken up by the couch. The visit confirmed, at least for me that living in a small space can be a good experience, if certain criteria are met.  I took these photos at the exhibit.

What makes a tiny home a good, or at least acceptable, place to live? Read more…

Any environment that encourages walking is a place that works. We may be walking up or down stairs or to and from meeting rooms. It doesn’t matter why we’re walking, as long as we do. Interiors designed to encourage getting up and moving around may have open, central staircases that link floors together or cafeterias that are located within walking distance from workspaces.

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The 2012 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion built in London’s Kensington Gardens and designed by Herzog & de Meuron with Ai Weiwei, is the single best example of prospect and refuge I have ever seen. It’s definitely a place that works.

All signs point to human comfort where we’re in a refuge with prospect, accompanied by biophilic design elements. Such spaces are welcoming to our species, possibly because in our evolutionary past they helped secure our survival.

What does it mean to say that a space provides prospect and refuge?  Prospect is the ability to look out and determine what’s going on in a nearby area; refuge is, well, a sheltered space. Generally, when both are present and at their best, a refuge has a lower ceiling (or some other similar surface) and a view out over an area that has a higher (or no) ceiling and is more brightly lit. When our ancestors lived on the savanna with few tools to protect themselves, this sort of configuration allowed them to relax a little, knowing that they could see trouble approaching.

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Turning ten next year, the McCormick Tribune Campus Center at the Illinois Institute of Technology, designed by OMA’s Rem Koolhaas in 2003, is a widely lauded building. Waxing poetic about the way the structure incorporates the train tracks that run above it, while protecting the building’s occupants from any noise or vibrations associated trains, is just one positive reaction to the well-known design.

But for me, this campus center at IIT works because it provides students and faculty with choices of where to work and hang out. Their options range from sundrenched tables to underground computer stations. Like any student center, this too contains spaces where the kids can eat, drink coffee, meet with others, and shop during their breaks. But it’s the sense of control they get that I find rewarding.

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We get definite psychological benefits from feeling a sense of awe, so says recent research by Rudd, Vohs, and Aaker. Places that work can make us feel that rare emotion, as these researchers learned. In their study of people “who felt awe, relative to other emotions [such as happiness], felt they had more time available … and were less impatient … [those who] experienced awe were also more willing to volunteer their time to help others … more strongly preferred experiences over material products … and experienced a greater boost in life satisfaction.”

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Air travel is a miserable experience these days and giving travelers some sense control makes the process somewhat less onerous.

Some U.S. airports, for instance, provide rocking chairs for waiting passengers. These rockers offer another seating option to people, and having a choice, at least from a reasonable number of options, gives us a psychological boost. In St. Louis (pictured), there are enough of these chairs in each waiting area so that small groups can arrange themselves as they see fit – making eye contact or not, gathered around a young child, looking at images spread on the floor or on a computer screen as a client pitch is drafted.

There is also a health benefit. Rocking in the chairs vigorously enough can release endorphins into your bloodstream, which boost your mood just as surely as your sense of control does.

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In Orlando’s Peabody Hotel’s public spaces, a positive experience is created by the sounds of water flowing and splashing.

Gently moving water makes us comfortable. Its rhythmic, primal sounds soothe away the everyday stresses of modern life. Though we have known, instinctively, about the psychological boost we get from listening to moving water—even before the effect was investigated by scientists or commercialized by the people who market desk top fountains—now we have the scientific evidence.

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The United States Botanic Garden in Washington DC is a place that works because the greenhouses there stimulate all our senses.

Transmitting experiences of a place through several senses is a central tenet of biophilic design. And at the Botanic Garden these pleasant experiences are due to much more than presence of plants. In fact, some of our best hospital rooms, workplaces, and other spaces are biophilicly designed, without including a single plant – although it’s always a great idea to include a few of them in any room. After all, research has linked leafy green vegetation has to creative thinking.

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Even in our high tech age, hearths continue to enhance our experience of the rooms where they appear. The psychological power of a glowing, cracking fire safely tucked into a generous niche endures even though we no longer depend on its heat and light.

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