How environment design can pull people apart

You walk into a bus. There’s just one person sitting in a double seater.

Where would you sit?

You walk into a public washroom. There’s a dude using the urinal at the far end.

Where would you go?

You walk into an elevator. There’s one other person in there and they shift to the far corner to give you space to enter.

Where do you stand?

Some spaces have a seemingly scripted ability to pull us apart. And the way we think about personal space seems to depend a lot on the environment we’re in. More specifically, it seems to be dependent on:

1. The size of the environment. The smaller the space, the less personal space we need. The larger the space, the more personal space we need
2. Where people are in the environment. If we walk into a lecture hall and there are 10 students in the first 3 rows, we’d probably be more likely to gravitate to the front of the class. Our desire for personal space seems to want to imitate how other people are using their personal space.
3. Third things in the environment. Our need for personal space can be diminished if there’s something in the environment that pulls our attention toward it. Things like art, seating, light, food, drinks, entertainment, windows, and media displays make it easier to reduce the amount of personal space people feel they need.

It seems to me that:

the bigger the space,

the blander the space,

and the more space around the people already within a space,

all increase the amount of personal space we desire.

https://twitter.com/LamarElimbo/status/1665190973587050496?s=20

The Anti-Social Architecture Equation

How to increase the amount of personal space people desire:

The bigger the space + the blander the space + the more space around the people already within a space.

Some spaces have a seemingly scripted ability to pull us apart.

And It seems to me that the way we think about personal space depends on the environment we’re in.

More specifically, it seems to be dependent on...

1️⃣ The size of the environment.

The smaller the space, the less personal space we need.

The larger the space, the more personal space we need.

2️⃣ Where people are in the environment.

If we walk into a lecture hall & there are 10 students in the first 3 rows, we’d probably be more likely to gravitate to the front of the class.

Our desire for personal space seems to want to ape how other people are using theirs.

3️⃣ Third things in the environment.

Our need for personal space can be diminished if there’s something in the environment that pulls our attention toward it.

Things like art, seating, light, food, drinks, entertainment, windows, & media displays tends to pull people together.

How environment design can pull people together

Social architecture is the intentional design of a space to encourage any range of social behaviours. It focuses on the connection between people, activity, and place and it forces us to question how we can design inclusive spaces that make people feel comfortable and motivated to interact with each other.

If I was going to design a space for an event where I wanted people to socialize, I’d look to the study of social architecture for inspiration and here are some questions I’d think about:

• What are the most magnetic third things? I’d be really interested to see a study that compared the magnetism of different objects. Like, in an analysis of 10 completely different rooms and 10 different social events in each room, where do people tend to gravitate? Potentially more interestingly, where do the first arrivals tend to gravitate? I believe those magnets are the keys to pulling people together.


https://twitter.com/LamarElimbo/status/1664611772421029890?s=20

What are the most magnetic 3rd things?

It’d be really cool to see a study that compared the magnetism of different objects.

Like, in an analysis of social events held 10 completely different rooms where do people tend to gravitate?

Food table? Art? Windows? Media displays?...



Potentially more interestingly, where do the first arrivals tend to gravitate?

It can be hard to pull people together, but I'd predict that effective third things are the keys to getting people to converge in one spot.

• How do maximalist vs minimalist environments foster conversation? If I had to guess, I’d imagine that maximalist spaces are more likely to facilitate conversation. The easiest conversation starter is often commentary about the environment. The weather tends to be a fan favourite. So, I wonder if the presence of weird objects and eclectic designs give people an easy topic to spark conversation.


https://twitter.com/LamarElimbo/status/1668686653978714136?s=20

How to Design a Space that Inspires Conversations

Just like how the weather tends to be an easy intro, the easiest conversation starters seem to be commentary on our surroundings.

So, I wonder if maximalist spaces are more likely to facilitate conversation?



I'd imagine that the presence of weird objects and eclectic designs give people an easy topic to spark up a conversation.

That being said...

Put two strangers in a white-walled room and they could easily start talking about about how sterile it is in there.



Maybe the best sparks come from our ability to identify the uniqueness in any space, rather than the state of the space itself.

And if it's true that people with a talent for noticing are better conversation starters, it could be worth thinking about how we can hone that skill?

• Where do different personalities naturally gravitate to in a room? Some of us feel safer on the sidelines. Our level of comfort can be easily deduced by how far into the room we get. Putting magnetic elements along the edges of a room could keep the sidelines interesting for people who don’t tend to gravitate to the centre floor.


https://twitter.com/LamarElimbo/status/1666042169029697538?s=20

It's interesting to think about where different personalities naturally gravitate to in a crowded room.

Almost as if a person's comfort level can be deduced by how far into the room they get.

The Productized Home • 🔗 / Youtube Video / We need to build better homes – here’s how /

You can name the brand behind most of the consumer products you own, like your sneakers, wrist watch, or smartphone. But what about your house? Could there be benefits to conceptualizing your home as a product, similar to how you view your smartphone? Veev thinks so. The California-based building technology company believes that traditional construction methods leave little room for the innovation we’ve come to expect from other consumer products. That’s why they build all the components for their homes off-site. This allows Veev to efficiently integrate modern technology into those components, including in-wall touch panels, custom lighting and blinds systems, and walls that come with electricity, plumbing, and sensors pre-installed.

Veev is neither the first, nor the only company attempting to productize pre-fabricated homes. And the concept has a lot of practical benefits like:

• manufacturing in a controlled environment,
• optimized material and labor costs,
• decreased construction time,
• and significant less wastage.

However, there are some thought-provoking concerns that have been raised, like:

“My concern with treating homes as a product is that with the positives of product design there comes negatives. Planned obsolescence, restricting maintenance to only Veev approved people, having to buy only Veev approved materials. I don't want to have to call Veev to replace a lightbulb or fix my furnace. Gives them way too much power.”

“Retrofitting homes with better tech is important too. Eg; Electric heating, better insulation, better windows, electric boiler, electric oven/stove.”

When I think of “home brands”, I think about the names of architects, designers, decorators, embedded technologies, and property management companies. I’m sure most of them would think about their work as being apart of their brand too. But I’m actually pretty surprised that we don’t already have major home brands, like we have major car brands, for example.

When it comes to brands taking over markets, I think about how so many phones, and cars, and buildings, and homes look nearly identical. So, I wonder if the rise of the “home brand” will lead to an even more obvious decline in bespoke novelty in home design.

It looks like some companies are addressing that exact concern by standardizing housing building blocks while leaving enough opportunity for aesthetic customization.

https://twitter.com/LamarElimbo/status/1669166847499948033?s=20

Home Brands

When I think of the brand of a home, I think of names of architects, designers, decorators, embedded technologies, and property management companies.

But what would it look like if there were major home brands? Similar to how we have major car brands, for example.

I saw a piece in Dezeen this week about houses and skyscrapers designed by luxury car brands: https://www.dezeen.com/2023/06/07/luxury-car-brands-residential-houses-skyscrapers/

It got me wondering how different urban aesthetics would look if only handful of brands were responsible for building our spaces.

Would we revere the clean UI of these built branded spaces, like we do with the design of Apple products?

Or would we condemn the same loss of individuality that we're noticing in most branded products today: https://twitter.com/david_perell/status/1545819896004624384?s=20

AI Architecture • 🔗 / Dezeen / How AI software will change architecture and design /

What does the future of architectural photography look like in a world with AI?

I've been thinking that I might enjoy playing with architectural photography (AP). My plan for this weekend was to deep dive into every YouTube video on the topic. I wanted answers to questions like:

• What makes AP good vs bad?
• What styles do I gravitate toward?
• How can good AP compensate for a lacklustre environment?
• Who are respected photographers in this domain and what makes their work so special?
• How has AP evolved through history?
• What will the future of AP look like?

Once I hit that last question my mind felt a jolt.

What will the future of photography look like in general? Should I bother studying this if it's potentially destined to be an antiquated skill in the near future?

I wonder if this is what it feels like to be a high school student nowadays?

I remember the stress I felt in those days trying to plan out my future. Heck, I'm still experiencing that pressure. I’m constantly wondering if I'm cursed with an inability to cope with ambiguity. And my inner dialogue usually sounds something like:

How do other people live in the now? Isn’t stressing about our future a universal consequence of having ambition and dreams? Hmm I don’t know, maybe more adaptive people than you have adopted some sort of helpful mindset, like:

• No path you choose is irreversible. The first step is to take a first step.
• No matter what I'll always be able to adapt and change course if I need to.
• As long as I'm staying consistent and each little step is going to move me forward.
• Even if I'm not stepping in the right direction, there's no experience I can't gain or learn from.
• I'm confident it's all going to work out in the end, as long as I focus on x, y, & z.

I often find myself coming back to these mindsets, but the little ambiguity-averse voice inside my head seems to be a long-term companion.

Perhaps Al will take over AP. But at the same time, perhaps the only way to fully take advantage of AI as a tool is to understand the basics. I’ve been looking into AI tools for visuals and it seems that the people who get the best results are the ones who are able to prompt the AI with specific style or artists to reference as inspiration. In other words, all the power seems to be in the quality of the prompt and the more basics we know, the more specific we can be in our request.

When it comes to learning a new skill that’s likely to be impacted by AI, maybe a good first question to ask nowadays is how exactly an understanding of the basics going to help us use Al as a tool more effectively.

Why I'm an architect that designs for social impact, not buildings | Liz Ogbu

One of my main goals in writing this newsletter is to better understand what it is about environment design that attracts my interest so strongly and to hopefully figure out a way to channel that interest into a productive and rewarding career for myself.

I love when people use their skills and expertise in non-traditional and unexpected ways. So I was quickly drawn into this ted talk when Liz proclaimed:

“I'm an architect that doesn't design buildings.” … ”The things that I design, the things that I build are actually opportunities for impact.”

Giddy Abundance

Where would you go to get that “kid in the candy store” feeling?

Touted as one of our main aesthetics of joy by Ingrid Fetell Lee, the person who wrote the book on joy, she describes the abundance aesthetic as the joy we find in quantity and variety of sensory stimulation.

If you were to open the door to a room full of treasures designed just for you, what’s one thing you’d want that room to be filled with?

https://twitter.com/LamarElimbo/status/1666780370597978114?s=20

Kid in Candy Store Feeling 🍭

Ingrid Fetell Lee's book Joyful touts abundance as one of our aesthetics of joy.

The type we find in quantity and variety of sensory stimulation.

If you opened the door to a room full of treasures made for you, what would spark your inner child?