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The Impacts of the Built Environment on Human Sensation, Health, and Wellbeing

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 3522

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
School of the Built Environment, Whiteknights, University of Reading, P.O. Box 219, Reading RG6 6AW, UK
Interests: health and wellbeing; design and management of intelligent buildings; sustainable liveable buildings; environmental sensory design; creating productive and creative workplaces
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Guest Editor
Department of Psychology, Vancouver Island University, 900 Fifth St., Nanaimo, BC V9R 5S5, Canada
Interests: environmental psychology; applied neuroscience; social design; sense of place; community planning

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Human existence is enlivened every moment by a symphony of environmental stimuli from people, objects, building exteriors and interiors and, of course, nature. This rich array of inputs into the mind and body generates the multi-sensory experiences that can enrich the many environments in which people live and work. Indeed, architecture can be understood as an extension of nature into the person-made realm. It provides the grounds for many forms of perception, and a basis from which people can learn to understand and enjoy the world. Because people now spend most of their lives inside buildings, it is imperative that homes, offices, schools, hospitals, public, and industrial settings alike must not only be environmentally sustainable, but also designed and understood as humane places where individuals can thrive and flourish. Now, in the wake of a global public health crises, generating theoretical, practical, and interdisciplinary knowledge about the features of buildings that afford positive sensory experiences, as well as physical and mental health outcomes, is both timely and responsible.

In 1964, Maurice Merleau-Ponty noted that the task of architecture is to make visible how the world touches us. Accounting for building occupants’ sensations and perceptions in indoor spaces has been central to the discipline of environmental psychology for decades, as well as to the different fields of design and urban planning. Architecture deals not only with materials and form, but also with people and their emotions in relation to built spaces and their affordances for human health and wellness. Indeed, our thoughts and experiences, occurring via the senses, are stimulated not only by the molar environments around us and the people in them, but also by the specific architecture of a space—the shapes, lighting, sounds, textures, and other cues that can sculpt the outline of our behaviours, memories, and impressions.

One of the aims of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is to publish research that merges the environmental health sciences with public health. It links topics concerning engineering, occupational safety, biology, and environmental quality. Each of these topics (and more) relate to this Special Issue titled “The Impacts of the Built Environment on Human Sensation, Health, and Wellbeing.” This issue will serve as a hub for some of the latest research on how the built environment affects our sensory experiences, our physical health, and our mental wellbeing. A number of psychosocial and physiological outcomes correspond to these lines of enquiry and are relevant to this Special Issue, such as learning, pro-social behaviors and attitudes, work performance measures, cognitive performance, clinical outcomes, and so on. We also hope to attract work that reviews holistic urban or community planning models which are designed to foster mental and physical health, modern design and management processes that consider the human condition as a primary requirement, and architectural case studies where occupants’ attitudes, emotions, and sensory experiences are measured and interpreted against the breadth of studies that exist in the realms of environmental psychology, public health, planning, and design.

Prof. Dr. Derek Clements-Croome
Prof. Dr. Lindsay McCunn
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • human health
  • mental wellbeing
  • sensation and perception
  • environmental psychology
  • architecture
  • planning
  • interior design
  • phenomenology

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

18 pages, 16138 KiB  
Article
Exploring Students’ Emotional Well-Being in the Ideal University Hostel Using the Qualitative Repertory Grid Technique
by Fanan Jameel and Ahmed Agiel
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(18), 6724; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20186724 - 7 Sep 2023
Viewed by 2328
Abstract
One of the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it has lent urgency to ongoing discussions on mental well-being, particularly among university students. While standard techniques are available to diagnose mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, and stress, ambiguity persists regarding [...] Read more.
One of the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it has lent urgency to ongoing discussions on mental well-being, particularly among university students. While standard techniques are available to diagnose mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, and stress, ambiguity persists regarding the emotional aspect of well-being. Emotional well-being (EWB) is a recently developed concept that seeks to understand the contribution of emotions to one’s well-being. Interactive approaches for such investigations are recommended to understand people’s contextual experiences in the built environment. This study utilizes a qualitative approach, underpinned by personal construct theory (PCT) and the qualitative repertory grid technique (RGT), to understand how university hostel designs can contribute to students’ emotional well-being. We interviewed fifteen students from the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) and obtained their perceptions of three built environments they experienced and an ideal place they imagined. The results unveiled design-related factors associated with students’ emotional constructs and elucidated characteristics of an ‘ideal’ hostel in response to these emotional constructs. These findings enrich our knowledge of EWB within university hostels offering insights for the future design that consider the emotional aspect of well-being for residents. Full article
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