#FeelGoodSpaces
Image source: Multi-sensory design – creating healthier public spaces. details below, fabulously designed by Stephanie Ferguson

#FeelGoodSpaces

Briony Turner Briony Turner

Briony Turner

Climate Services (WCRP CMIP-IPO), IAQ Working Party secretary, CIBSE Knowledge Generation Panel Vice Chair and SES Trustee

发布日期: 2019年11月7日
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I was just digging up some links for someone and re-read the summary Kay and I produced for a talk series we held on health and wellbeing a while back. I think worth sharing and signposting again the resources we collated for those interested in this topic. For anyone that attended and something happened as a result of the events, do let us know via a comment.

By providing this sensory exploration of place, we sought to challenge and perhaps change conventional approaches to place-making, putting the health and wellbeing of people firmly at the heart of design considerations. 

The design of the built environment can have a profound impact on perception, place identity and place experience. On behalf of the Adaptation and Resilience in the Context of Change (ARCC) network (sadly project funding ended for this brilliant EPSRC initiative) and the Revealing Spaces workgroup of the Feeling Good Foundation (also no longer operating, details below), myself and Kay Pallaris ran a series of events during 2015-2016 focused on the senses, to encourage reflection on the consequences of public realm design on city dwellers’ physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing.

Throughout the series we encouraged speakers and participants to think about:

  • How do occupants’ sensory systems react with their surrounding environment?
  • What are the implications of this for sustainable, healthy and adaptive place-making?
  • What are the barriers to incorporating this research into current place-making practices?
  • How can designing with senses in mind improve cities’ and occupants’ capacity to adapt to the changing climate?
  • How can the evidence be converted to practical tools and methods for urban planning and design practitioners?
  • What are the next steps?

Event #1 - Back to basics

The first event went back to basics, delving into what constitutes health and wellbeing, and examining the relationships between human physiology, psychology and placemaking. We learnt about research into sustainable healthy urban environments, and how to measure and understand the implicit and explicit effects of urban places on peoples’ feelings and behaviour. The event uncovered how to generate pro-social behaviour, and explored the use of biourbanism to enhance the human experience of the built environment. Researchers also described how to design psychologically informed cities, and the characteristics of the urban environment that can be modified to improve mental health.

Event materials available here

Event #2 - Smellscapes and soundscapes

The second event explored the impact of urban design on auditory and olfactory senses. We were taken on a voyage of olfactory discovery, from crowd-sourced city smellscapes to those of urban intermodal transit spaces. We heard about the technology available to create more immersive physical spaces that could improve environmental quality for urban dwellers.

We learnt that our odour receptors are less receptive in cold weather, and that odour molecules become airborne faster in warmer environments, so climate change could alter city smellscapes. The expected changes in climate will also have an impact on sound, for instance, a warming climate may trigger increased use of ventilation which will change the sonic identity of a place both indoors and out.

Event materials available here

Event #3 - Visual spectacle and tactile texture of places 

The third event in the series explored the impact of urban design on city dwellers’ sight and touch-based sensory experiences, and the pedagogy of design. This was an event of extremes, from trauma to sensory delight. We learnt that memories of conflict can remain apparent within bounded physical spaces, whilst cycling can, through the effects of the urban form on kinaesthetic, tactile and visual experience of older cyclists, be a form of sensory delight.

The event featured a strong emphasis on the use of biophilic design to enhance the visual and sensory elements of public space, and how this could help to reduce the anticipated psycho-physiological environmental stressors of climate change.

We learnt of the frequent failure to take into account peoples’ ability to selectively direct attention to particular stimuli in the environment. Often, the high visual complexity of the urban environment requires a strong attentional focus at the expense of other sensory stimuli, whereas natural environments are thought to require less focus, enabling people to ‘restore’ attentional control.

Event materials available here

Event #4 - Sensing the place – experiences and wayfinding 

The fourth event formed part of Open-City’s Green Sky Thinking week in London. The speakers took attendees back to the first principles of the psychology of how we navigate through our environment, and the role of urban design in aiding dwellers to adapt to varying thermal experiences as the climate changes.

Urban form and morphology can affect micro-climates, consequently affecting people’s thermal comfort and sensory capacities.

Badly designed urban layouts can result in poor navigational legibility and inhibit dwellers’ sense of direction. Ideas on how to improve the built environment to give a sense of security in an extreme weather event were also discussed. During the dialogue, participants raised concerns as to whether opportunities for social interaction are unconsciously being designed out of public spaces. The series explored the impacts of design on a physiological and psychological level, irrespective of age, gender, class or bodily ability.

We feel strongly that good design does not discriminate, and yet the physical environment is full of poor design that does.

Event materials available here

Event #5 - Sensing through impairments

The fifth event in the series brought together research and case studies that tackled how to design an environment to empower people who have lost or have reduced functionality of a sense, or set of senses – something everyone is likely to face as part of the ageing process. In addition, questions were raised and techniques shared as to how to design life-course public spaces for all.

Event materials available here , Kay and I wrote a brief write up here.

Event #6 - Multi-sensory design – creating healthier public spaces 

The final event was multi-sensory focused, built on what we’d discovered - considering how the senses interact, how they are processed, how we form emotional responses, and the individual and collective perceptions of place.

Event materials available here

I've continued on signposting to interesting resources via #FeelGoodSpaces, join in!

Please note the majority of this text was first published in the Introduction section of the  Multi-sensory design – creating healthier public spaces brochure written by myself and Kay Pallaris, Director of Mapping Futures, published for the final series event December 2016. Reference:

UKCIP, 2016 (Ed. Turner, B.D.) Multi-sensory design – creating healthier public spaces. UKCIP, University of Oxford. (publication was fabulously designed by Stephanie Ferguson)


Related publications

Clements-Croome, D., Pallaris, K. and Turner, B. (2019) Flourishing workplaces: a multisensory approach to design and POE. Intelligent Buildings International Journal. ISSN 1750-8975 doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17508975.2019.1569491

Turner, B., Clements-Croome, D., and Pallaris, K. (2017) Chapter 3. The Multi-Sensory Experience in Buildings. In Clements-Croome, D., (Editor). Creating the Productive Workplace: Places to Work Creatively. Third Edition. Taylor & Francis, 2017.

Sensory palette features in: Grigoriou, E. (2019) Wellbeing in Interiors: Philosophy, design and value in practice. RIBA Publishing

co editor: Journal of Biourbanism Volume VII #1/2018, see Kay's excellent editor's letter


Other built-environment health related activities I've been involved with:

Indoor Air Quality

2017 - present Establishing a Working Group, bringing together health and built environment experts, to study the effects of indoor air pollution on child health and what can be done to combat it. In 2016, both the RCP & RCPCH working party report "Every breath we take" and The Bonfield Review "Each home counts" recommended taking action to tackle poor indoor air quality.

2017: following discussions with Prof Holgate and BRE, I organised an event with BRE, RCP and RCPCH "Better homes, better air, better health" on solutions for reducing exposure to air pollution when indoors. This resulted in decision to establish an interdisciplinary Working Group on Indoor Air Quality with a life-course and children’s health and wellbeing focus.

2017-2018: voluntary work behind the scenes fundraising, devising the work programme and membership

2018: RCPCH announced the IAQ Working Group. The IAQ Working Group has:

  • commissioned a systematic review on the health effects of indoor air pollution on infants, children and young people (scope)
  • launched a wider call for evidence from stakeholders, including engagement with children and young people (Call)
  • reviewed evidence of the causes and ways in which indoor air pollution in homes and schools adversely affects the health of children
  • produced a report which summarises the evidence and makes recommendations to influence day to day domestic and education activities and practices as well as the planning, building and refurbishment of homes and schools [due for publication Autumn 2019/Early Spring 2020]


ARCC network -in addition to FGPS series, mostly in partnership with CIBSE

and more resources available still at: https://www.arcc-network.org.uk/health-wellbeing/

Feeling Good Foundation 2013-2016

This was how I met key people, ahead of the mainstream, and with foresight to realise we needed fundamental change in mainstream built environment working practice - people like Prof Derek Clements-Croome, Elina Grigoriou, Paul Hinkin, the founder of Black Architecture who sadly passed away in 2014.

The Feeling Good Foundation was set up in early 2013 by The Building Centre Trust and Grigoriou Interiors in response to a strongly expressed desire by the industry to learn more about what enhances wellbeing in the built environment.

It initially started as a series of events organised by Gardiner and Theobald and Grigoriou Interiors in 2011, that took place at The Building Centre called the ‘Feeling Good Conversations’ -I attended these, was inspired and keen to do something:

Resulting from this, it was felt that there was a need to have an organisation that could capture and disseminate the resulting information as well as increasing the store of knowledge about wellbeing within the industry. It then evolved to become a not-for profit organisation by industry and academia to discover, develop and mainstream knowledge about what enhances health and wellbeing in the built environment

The Feeling Good Foundation aimed to act as a hub for developing and promoting new ideas from the industry and academia, and a source of expertise for industry leaders seeking to take innovative practices mainstream. For a number of years the volunteers did this by gathering and sharing information, conducting research, applying knowledge and raising awareness. We facilitated and hosted Work Group, talks and events that brought together engineers, interior designers, quantity surveyors, architects, academics, manufacturers, healthcare experts and more to share, learn and create better spaces.

I've included them below because these people were far ahead of, and saw the need to change the mainstream.

2014 Edge Debate 64: Buildings for Humans: Are We in Danger of Value Engineering out the Wellbeing of Occupants?

Work Groups:

  • Attitudes towards Wellbeing   Establishing attitudes of the UK’s mainstream property industry towards ‘wellbeing’ Group leader: Elina Grigoriou, Grigoriou Interiors
  • Environmental Sensory Design  Impact of the built environment on health and productivity.  Group leader: Emeritus Professor Derek Clements-Croome, University of Reading 
  •  Interaction Design for the Built Environment  Methodologies for understanding people/environment interactions.  Group leader: Lily Bernheimer, Space Works Consulting 
  • The Business Case for Feeling Good  Convergence of sustainable and organisational performance.  Group leader: Richard Francis, The Monomoy Company 
  • Impact of Breakout Spaces on Staff Wellbeing  Breakout Spaces value return.  Group leader: Elina Grigoriou, Grigoriou Interiors 
  • Feeling Good in Public Spaces  Finding ways to reveal and address the hidden health and wellbeing impacts of public realm design.  Group leader: Briony Turner, University of Oxford and King’s College London 
  • Wellbeing Accounting  Establishing a well-being accounting methodology for work in the built environment.  Group leader: Richard Lupo, Sustainable Homes 




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