A Natural Balance: Interior Design, Humans, and Sustainability

P E R S P E C T I V EFigure 2. Impact of buildings on people illustrates the interrelationships for human-responsive buildings(Heerwagen et al., 2011).As a starting place, Figure 2, adapted from Heerwagen et al. (2011), presents a structure for furtherexploration of the three main areas in which buildings appear to have a consistent effect on people’s physical,psychosocial, and neurocognitive functions. Figure 2 shows that when a person’s physical functions arecompromised by a building, it can impact the individual’s cardiovascular and respiratory systems, vision,skin, biorhythms, and sleep, which can, in turn, increase healthcare costs and absenteeism. Furthermore, whena person’s psychosocial functions are compromised by a building, his or her emotional experience, well-being,and social supports also can be affected, thus reducing satisfaction and engagement with the environmentand other humans. And finally, when a person’s neurocognitive functions are compromised by a building, itcan impact the individual’s attention, concentration, memory, and alertness, which affects productivity. Thekey in the upper left of Figure 2 shows that the ‘‘Environment,’’ ‘‘Behavioral’’ and ‘‘Social’’ bubbles are nowin color symbolizing active engaged status for all three mechanisms impacting humans.While many interior designers are aware of at least some of these effects of buildings on inhabitants, mostresearch about these human functions remains discipline specific (usually social sciences) and out of reachJournal of Interior Design xiii Volume 37 Number 2 2012