How To Design for Comfort: Human Scale

This week's podcast we dig into one of the six attributes that help to create environments of connection, Human Scale. I interview Thom Grieving, Principal of HKS, about his team's work around a very special project that helps to exemplify what design with human scale for connection looks like at University of California at San Diego, Theater District Living and Learning Neighborhood. For this project, the Dean and leadership of UCSD had thoughtfully embedded considerations around social health and social connection in the original program of spaces and considering community health and wellness were key aims that the project targeted.

Spaces designed at a human scale use architectural detailing and variety to create small and intimate environments that are comfortable for people to move through or occupy. These are spaces that meet our basic human needs for comfort, safety, and interest (1), and that feel good to be in for reasons that are often indescribable. City blocks designed at a human scale have been shown to promote more social interactions and lingering (2), whereas research reveals that blocks with large expanses of monotonous storefront elevate stress responses and speed walking (3).

This conclusion was tested at a Whole Foods in New York City, where a research team found that despite the store operator’s desire for Whole Foods to feel like a local grocery store and blend with the existing neighborhood, the expansive glass storefront actually repelled passersby, who quickened their pace to get past it (4). This finding echoes a growing body of research in both human and mouse models that show how spaces devoid of ornamentation and variety can elicit a strong stress response (5), believed to be linked to the painful boredom they provoke (6).

A well-established component of human-scale design is the quality of providing prospect and refuge (7), offered by buildings or spaces that create a sense of enclosure while giving people the ability to look out—for instance, being under a patio pergola or on a front porch and watching the street. If you have ever felt the pull of a cozy booth seat or rested at the base of a tree, you have experienced the natural comfort of a space that provided prospect and refuge. This quality promotes a dual sense of security and openness that allows us to deepen existing friendships and form new ones.

Citations: 1. Montgomery, 2018; 2. Ellard, 2018;3. Ellard, 2018; Montgomery, 2018; 4. Ellard, 2018; Montgomery, 2018; 5. Bayne, 2018; Salingaros, 2014; 6. Ellard, 2018; 7. Dosen & Ostwald, 2016

Links:

• UCSD Future College in the San Diego Union Tribute
• Ellard & Montgomery Study around human scale for BMW Guggenheim Lab
• BMW Guggenheim Lab
• Architect, Thom Greiving