# Looking for books on psychological impacts of environmental design

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-books-on-psychological-impacts-of-environmental-design/315318>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 2, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-books-on-psychological-impacts-of-environmental-design/315318 "2005-08-02T16:29:24Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Cagey\_Drifter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@Cagey\_Drifter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cagey_Drifter)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-books-on-psychological-impacts-of-environmental-design/315318/1 "2005-08-02T16:29:24Z")

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I want to read up on how various factors in environmental design might have psychological or practical implications on human behavior; for example, how lighting affects the brain and mood, how the use of space might impact a work environment, how color changes mood, use of nature in creating a ‘healthy’ atmosphere, etc. Does anyone have any recommmendations on books that address these sorts of issues?

There was a little bit about this in a book called “Natural Capitalism” (which is an excellent book, by the way), but I want more information and more detail.

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**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-books-on-psychological-impacts-of-environmental-design/315318/2 "2005-08-03T08:42:16Z")

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I don’t know anything about the subject, but here’s what a quick Google search turned up:

1. [Exerpt](http://www.placeperformance.com/features/chap101.htm) from a book that seems to talk about exactly the kind of stuff you mentioned.

2. [Amazon.com search for “environmental psychology”](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index%3Dblended%26field-keywords%3Denvironmental%2Bpsychology/) – some of them have samples and reviews.

Not sure how helpful/useless that is, sorry.