As part of Green Week at cepezed, Fiona de Vos stopped by today for a short lecture and to answer questions. The 6 theories on human behavior that she ran through in her talk confirm the importance of soft values such as "wellbeing" and safety for sustainable architecture. It also offers guidance for design.
flourish
Environmental psychologist Fiona de Vos operates out of Studio dVO, a consultancy and research firm specializing in the interaction between the built environment and people. Perhaps needless to mention, de Vos strives for "an environment in which people and organizations flourish. As an environmental psychologist, she is versed in explaining and predicting human behavior. The 6 points she runs through - including the automatic search for the balance between too much and too little excitement - are all relevant to architects.
90 percent
At cepezed, we already design from the knowledge that we spend 90 percent of our time indoors. A pleasant environment, with daylight, or light that follows biorhythms, access to the outdoors and natural materials, et cetera, is one of the "pillars" of our architecture. Fiona de Vos flies this subject differently, as is already evident from the subtitle of her presentation: Improving wellbeing by adding psychology to design. But from the many questions afterwards, it is clear that architects and environmental psychologists can get along just fine in their pursuit of more sustainable buildings.
→ Would you like to know more about sustainability at cepezed and Green Week, click here
soft values in architecture
