The Shaping of Us: How Everyday Spaces Structure Our Lives, Behavior, and Well-BeingThe spaces we inhabit– from homes and workspaces to city streets—mediate community, creativity, and our very identity. Using insights from environmental psychology, design, and architecture, The Shaping of Us shows how the built and natural worlds subtly influence our behavior, health, and personality. Exploring ideas such as “ruin porn” and “ninja-proof seating,” mysteries of how we interact with the physical spaces around us are revealed. From caves and cathedrals to our current housing crisis and the dreaded open-plan office, Lily Bernheimer demonstrates that, for our well-being, we must reconnect with the power to shape our spaces. Have you ever wondered why we adorn our doorframes with moldings? What does Wikipedia’s open-source technology have to teach us about the history and future of urban housing? What does your desk say about your personality? From savannahs and skyscrapers to co-working spaces, The Shaping of Us shows that the built environment supports our well-being best when it echoes our natural habitats in some way. In attempting to restore this natural quality to human environments, we often look to other species for inspiration. The real secret to building for well-being, Bernheimer argues, is to reconnect humans with the power to shape our surroundings. When people are involved in forming and nurturing their environments, they feel a greater sense of agency, community, and pride, or “collective efficacy.” And when communities have high rates of collective efficacy, they tend to have less litter, vandalism, and violent crime. Playful and accessible, The Shaping of Us is a delightful read for designers, professionals, and anyone wanting to understand how spaces make us tick and how to fix the broken bits of our world. |
Contents
Why We Dream about Houses and Cry about Wind Farms | |
A Truman Show for Dementia Patients | |
The Tale of Midwest and Yoredale | |
The Ruin Porn Phenomenon | |
The Big | |
The Shape of Things to Come | |
Acknowledgments | |
Index | |
Other editions - View all
The Shaping of Us: How Everyday Spaces Structure Our Lives, Behavior, and ... Lily Bernheimer No preview available - 2020 |
The Shaping of Us: How Everyday Spaces Structure our Lives, Behaviour, and ... Lily Bernheimer No preview available - 2017 |
The Shaping of Us: How Everyday Spaces Structure Our Lives, Behavior, and ... Lily Bernheimer No preview available - 2022 |
Common terms and phrases
American architecture areas Barker behaviour settings bike biophilia biophilic British Broken Windows theory building built environment called cars cent colleagues collective efficacy colour Corbusier create culture density desks Detroit economic energy environmental psychology factors feel fractal function garden golden ratio greater grid high-rise housing crisis human IKEA Impact HUB individual innovation interact intersection Kahneman landscape Laweiplein layout Le Corbusier Lego less light living London Midwest and Yoredale mystery National natural NIMBYs ninja-proof seats open-plan offices ordered complexity organisation parks Parvin Pattern Language people’s personal space personalisation place identity population preferences Pruitt-Igoe Rat Park rats refuge and prospect Rosa Parks roundabout savannah shape shared space smart meters social norms specific streets structures sustainable Sustrans tend theory town traffic trees urban walls well-being WikiHouse woonerf workers workspace York