The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior Health and Happiness

About this book

An Architectural Record Notable Book A fascinating thought-provoking journey into our built environment Modern humans are an indoor species. We spend 90 percent of our time inside shuttling between homes and offices schools and stores restaurants and gyms. And yet in many ways the indoor world remains unexplored territory. For all the time we spend inside buildings we rarely stop to consider: How do these spaces affect our mental and physical well-being? Our thoughts feelings and behaviors? Our productivity performance and relationships? In this wide-ranging character-driven book science journalist Emily Anthes takes us on an adventure into the buildings in which we spend our days exploring the profound and sometimes unexpected ways that they shape our lives. Drawing on cutting-edge research she probes the pain-killing power of a well-placed window and examines how the right office layout can expand our social networks. She investigates how room temperature regulates our cognitive performance how the microbes hiding in our homes influence our immune systems and how cafeteria design affects whatand how muchwe eat. Along the way Anthes takes readers into an operating room designed to minimize medical errors a school designed to boost students physical fitness and a prison designed to support inmates psychological needs. And she previews the homes of the future from the high-tech houses that could monitor our health to the 3D-printed structures that might allow us to live on the Moon. The Great Indoors provides a fresh perspective on our most familiar surroundings and a new understanding of the power of architecture and design. Its an argument for thoughtful interventions into the built environment and a story about how to build a better worldone room at a time.