The Shaping of Us: How Everyday Spaces Structure Our Lives, Behavior, and Well-Being

by Lily Bernheimer

Overview

The 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781595348722
Publisher:	Trinity University Press
Publication date:	06/15/2019
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Lily Bernheimer is a researcher, writer, and consultant in environmental psychology. She is founding director of Space Works Consulting, with offices in the United States and the United Kingdom, which aims to make everyday spaces work for the people and purposes they serve. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Table of Contents

Preface v

Introduction 1

The Woonerf, the Stoplight, and the Roundabout 11

The Laweiplein paradox and the petrified wood principle

The Defeat of the Ninja-Proof Seat 36

The Hawthorne effect, personal space bubbles, and the open-plan office

Why We Dream about Houses and Cry about Wind Farms 72

NIMBYism, the high-rise, and the housing crisis

A Truman Show for Dementia Patients 109

Savannahs, snakes, and the mystery novel model

The Tale of Midwest and Yoredale 144

LEGO(s), frontier psychology, and 'acting basketball game'

The Ruin Porn Phenomenon 179

Detroit, fractal aesthetics, and The Timeless Way of Building

The Big Fix 218

From lab rats and rational choice to resilient cities

The Shape of Things to Come 253

Half a house, WikiHouse, and the IKEA effect

Acknowledgments 292

Notes 294

Index 315

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/22/2019

Environmental psychologist Bernheimer provides a fascinating introduction to her field in this far-reaching look at how the spaces in which humans live, work, and play affect their behavior. Avoiding jargon, Bernheimer opens with a simple simile—“Space is like a secret script directing our actions”—and proceeds to give countless examples to buttress that position. After recounting Winston Churchill’s desire to rebuild the old House of Commons exactly after it was destroyed by the Luftwaffe, she explains how the placement of its seats facilitates the “characteristically rambunctious nature of British parliamentary debate.” A real-life experiment from Holland shows how residential streets can be designed to serve the interests of residents, rather than motorists. The Broken Windows theory of policing comes under fire for being too simplistic, as Bernheimer cites studies to show the other factors which shape crime rates, such as “the level of trust, cohesion, and informal social control in an area.” At the conclusion, Bernheimer challenges her audience to “rewrite the secret scripts of lives” by becoming active participants in design decisions. Readers will finish this feeling better educated about the role of design and more alert to its impact on everyone’s lives. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Bernheimer shows how we are shaped by the spaces where we live, be it streets, offices, our homes, or even large chunks of cities or landscapes." — Archidose

"Bernheimer, an environmental psychologist, focuses in her work on creating spaces that are conducive to mental health."  — Hindustan Times

"Environmental psychologist Bernheimer provides a fascinating introduction to her field in this far-reaching look at how the spaces in which humans live, work, and play affect their behavior... Readers will finish this feeling better educated about the role of design and more alert to its impact on everyone’s lives." — Publishers Weekly

"With a background in environmental psychology research and creating human-centered design projects, Bernheimer knows her stuff." — Lonny.com

"Just a great book. Few things matter more than the spaces we inhabit, and Bernheimer convincingly states the case for design that accepts humanity as we actually are. You will never look at your neighbor, home or office quite the same way ever again." — Tim Wu, author of The Attention Merchants and The Curse of Bigness.

“How do our environments—built, natural, and biological—fit or fail to fit our needs as human beings? Lily Bernheimer takes us on a tour, a tour de force, of illuminating cases, with sage advice for those who design spaces for human beings to live humane lives.”— George Lakoff, author of Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being

“We have built an urban environment for ourselves, and it shapes us in return. In order to become happier and more effective humans, Bernheimer shows us how we must modify our cities, workplaces, and homes. Her book is an ideal introduction to this essential task.” — Max Jacobson, co-author of A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction

“In this exceptionally readable book, Bernheimer has translated research findings and design practice into a highly engaging account of how we interact with and mold the spaces around us. She shows us that with more thought and imagination, our buildings and cities could provide us with more stimulating, rewarding, and livable environments.” — David Uzzell, professor of environmental psychology, Universityof Surrey

“You are going to be transported by what Bernheimer has to say. You’ll make different decisions and figure out how your brain is working and what should be prioritized in your life.” — Jo Good, BBC London

“At a time when so much of life is lived online, Bernheimer’s fascinating book offers an accessible, deeply researched, and worldly exploration of the way concrete environments shape how we feel about our lives and the world around us.”— J. K. Dineen, author of Here Tomorrow: Preserving Architecture, Culture, and California’s Golden Dream

“An analysis of how we could design the whole of our environment to be better... She sets out to entertainingly chart the 20th-century history of research into how where we are shapes who we are. It's a timely volume given the current level of interest in the relationship between buildings and health.”— Kevin McCloud, Grand Designs Magazine

From the Publisher