Abstract

This paper reports the results of a preliminary investigation into whether indoor environments that evoke positive associations with the past, present, and future could be psychologically beneficial for building occupants. Subjects were asked to numerically evaluate a series of drawn images of rooms in which a range of visible temporal cues was independently varied. Initial results suggest that rooms that include sloping ceilings, perceptible variation, and views of other spaces are positively associated with feelings of nostalgia, engagement, and optimism respectively. The next stage of the work will be to repeat these experiments with a larger, more representative population in order to test whether there are any differences in responses to temporal cues associated with either culture or gender.