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

by Emily Anthes

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 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 what―and how much―we 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. It's an argument for thoughtful interventions into the built environment and a story about how to build a better world―one room at a time.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Architecture, Psychology, Design, Audiobook, Sociology

304 pages, Paperback

First published June 23, 2020

About the author

Emily Anthes is an award-winning science journalist and author. Her new book, The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior, Health, and Happiness, will be published in June 2020 by Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Her previous book, Frankenstein’s Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotech’s Brave New Beasts, was long-listed for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Wired, Nature, Slate, Businessweek, and elsewhere. Emily has a master’s degree in science writing from MIT and a bachelor’s degree in the history of science and medicine from Yale, where she also studied creative writing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/EmilyAnthes
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emilyanthes/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emily.anthes
Newsletter: https://emilyanthes.substack.com

Reviews

[Olive Zeynep · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apologies as this is more a rant about some of the examples in the book than a review...I thought this book was going to be harmless little education moment for me but I was wrong. First of all, I found this book boring—and I was really interested in the subject. I guess the problem begins with the first chapter which is essentially 30 pages just to say: there are microbiomes inside our homes and our shower heads. Ok. Mind you this is a piece of information that fascinated me. Yet, I found it hard to get through as the chapter was so boring. Exciting facts and less repetition please!

On the other hand, I found the hospital chapter quite interesting, minus the Florence Nightingale moment. I really liked the parts about architects working with hospital personnel to maximize the design of Operating Rooms. The architects asked and observed circulating nurses inside the OR and designed and revised it based on their needs. I really appreciated how when the things that architects thought would work out great did not end up having practical value in the real world, they listened to the personnel and changed those things! Like when they noticed the doctors weren't using the monitors showing the patient's information because the monitors were placed too far up to be useful to the staff! Now this was an architectural approach that I could get behind!

But my enthusiasm was to be shredded to pieces when I got to elementary schools chapter. This is in fact what propelled me to write this review, and why I don't think this book is harmless, because I have been quite haunted by the Buckingham Elementary School example. So much so that I stayed up thinking about it last night and just had to write this review. This is when the book got less let's-design-architecture-that-meets-its-users-needs and more we-can-change-the-behaviour-of children-through-architecture and ableist, fatphobic, and ignorant to the lives of people.

This is the example that makes me so mad. In a small town in Virginia, students are struggling because their school is essentially falling apart, in addition to being too small to accommodate the town's population. These architects come in and get funding to build this million dollar school that is at the edge of architectural innovation. They begin with the idea that architecture can get people to move more and be less sedentary, be more fit and less prone to obesity. This leads them to build a maze of a school that is impractical (in the end the kids actually end up getting their recess and playing time shortened because it just takes them so long to walk the damn corridors!) and ableist (I kept wondering how a disabled student was to navigate this school "designed to make people move more"—and this was left unmentioned) and fatphobic (the architects keep moving the student's chocolate milk bc they don't want them drinking it and even organize "a weight loss competition" among the staff. excuse me??). They design this cafeteria with an open concept kitchen where kids can learn how to bake from the staff—even though the probably underpaid staff has no education to do this and tells them what they need is more freezer space. The architects ignore this request because they don't want the kids eating frozen food?? It just sounds like a rich person's ignorant advice for a low-income community. Moreover, when the students and teachers end up using spaces differently than the architects intended, they come in and try to show them the "right way". They keep wondering why the staff put no cooking books in the bookshelves of the kitchen designed for students to learn to cook, instead of thinking perhaps this wasn't what the kids and the staff wanted or needed.

The architects' priorities become clear when they pay a visit to the school five years later. The lead architect says he wants to visit "his favourite room" (which I find peculiar for a place he was supposed to design for the students). His favourite room is a kind of architectural wonder with sharp angles and glass walls where supposedly it's like "getting a hug from the building". Instead, they find the curtains closed and the room transformed into a classroom as the community's population had been growing and they needed more classrooms. Ok. Why didn't the architects consider a much more valid concern which is needing more classrooms for a growing community instead of building an architectural wonder of a room that did not end up being practical to the students in any way? Also: Why not build a library? A tutoring program? After school activities? Food and funding for the community?

In fact, the whole thing ends up being more about the architects' ideals than the kids' and the community's needs. What makes me so sad is that there is this school that cost millions of dollars and it seems at no point they asked the students or the teachers or the staff what they would need.
All these grand ideals that do not actually end up meeting the lived everyday experiences of people. This is not what architecture should be about. The idea about an architecture that aims to change people's behaviour and patterns through design—instead of try to meet their needs and design a world that is more accommodating and more fitting to how we actually move around the world—just rubs me the wrong way. This example got me all riled up I know, and these architect's failing is not the author's fault, but the author also does not provide any critique for it. Here was a chance to talk about how behaviour-altering architecture can go too far and not match the user's needs, but I think the author might not even have been able to comment negatively on the example as the study was sponsored by the company.

Ok rant over. Hopefully I can stop thinking about this elementary school's architecture and sleep now.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Ever since I wrote Happier at Home and Outer Order, Inner Calm, I've been particularly interested in how our spaces influence our happiness and health. And actually, that's a big issue in Better Than Before, as well. Fascinating subject.

[Vivian · Rating 2 out of 5]

More advocacy than science.

I found the title a wee bit deceptive. I appreciate the discussion about important social issues like affordable housing, prison reform, school lunches, etc., and while they're are presented well and important discussions to have, it it skewed more SJW than science in the page time.

This is spends more time advocating for human design review of various spaces than breaking it down architecturally. I think I was expecting something a little different.

[Erikka · Rating 4 out of 5]

We really enjoyed this. If you like the podcast 99% Invisible, you will absolutely adore every second of this book. Basically, she takes the concept of us spending 90% of our lives indoors and discusses how we can make that the best possible time in a series of places and situations. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on making architecture accessible (both for physical disabilities and for people with sensory issues like autism) and the chapter on prison reform (which was peppered heavily with "the best reform is to stop filling them up so much", which is painfully true). I'm also proud to be a Columbus Ohio resident when I read the chapter on hospitals and found that a Dublin hospital is already doing stellar work to follow the healing principles she lays out in the book.

I truly got a lot out of this and I hope the relatively boring sounding subject doesn't scare people away from reading what is a fascinating and at times very funny book.

[shelby · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior, Health, and Happiness. Spoiler alert: There is nothing surprising here by any means. If you are a human and know that other humans do better in surroundings that are clean and where they can get natural sunlight, fresh air, and clean water, then you understand this book. Most of it reads like those NPR articles that are like "Studies Show Poor People Suffer Higher Rates of Depression" [because they can't afford basic necessities and have to work in a system that is designed to keep them depressed] You had to do studies to figure that out?! Y'all got grant money for this?! In the 21st century?!

Some chapters in this book are as follows:
Solitary confinement (Did you know that solitary is basically inhumane? Shocker.)
Hospital rooms (Did you know patients fair better when they have a clean room of their own with a view of a tree as opposed to a gray brick wall?)
Cities (Did you know people are happier when they don't live in a filthy city?)
Suburban areas (Did you know that it's better for one's well being to be able to walk places and have a sense of community instead of driving everywhere and not talking to neighbors?)

If you answered all of these with duh , then like me, this book may not be for you.

If you are still interested, the first chapter about all the microscopic species not even really studied yet living in our houses was pretty cool.


[insert the picture of Meryl Streep saying "groundbreaking" in Devil Wears Prada ]

[Kelly]

I don't necessarily think "surprising" is the right word for this, but rather, fascinating. Anthes's book is an exploration of build spaces and the ways design works for and against people's needs. The first chapter dives into microbiomes and about how scientists learn about the ways people live based on the microbiomes within their own homes; for example, the microbiomes of homes with cats and dogs are much different, as are those who cook certain foods. The microbiomes in your shower head can explain some things about the way you live, while those around door frames can explain others.

Among the explorations are those of housing as it relates to people with disabilities. Learning about how designers are thinking about ways to provide options for independence to those who live with autism and other neurodiversities was super interesting, and Anthes does a great job highlighting the positives -- independence, thoughtful spaces using current research to inform what works and what doesn't -- with the negatives -- that these buildings can still segregate people from general populations, that they can be prohibitively expensive, etc. It's well-balanced and recognizes where there's a step forward, there are still reservations and considerations to be made.

I found the chapter on design for housing to be one of the most interesting, along with the chapters on jail and prison design (offering adequate discussion on why and how Americans have a poor understanding of what the purpose of these facilities is -- it IS the punishment, it's not FOR the punishment), on school design (offering appealing stair cases and hallways to encourage using them and moving the body), and how operating rooms can be redesigned to reduce errors (as someone who had a flawless surgery not too long ago, this was fresh in my mind).

Not too long ago, someone told me a story about how when designers attempted to develop the "perfect" cockpit seat based on the physical averages of humans, it ended up being an utter mess, unaccommodating to more people than what the standard seat already was. This stayed in my mind while listening to this book because indeed, there are no perfect answers to anything, even if it seems like there should be. Anthes, though, makes a vital case for how working toward accessibility for the widest range of people is what moves us forward as a whole and how taking into account the potential pitfalls of these choices only betters the end results.

Again: nothing SURPRISING if you've spent any time in the built environment, but it is engaging, enraging, and fascinating.

A solid audiobook with competent narration, though a few of the edits between recording sessions were obvious to the trained ear.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I so enjoyed reading The Great Indoors. Every chapter was enlightening and interesting, the science made accessible and relevant. Emily Anthes wisely introduces readers to cutting-edge insights and ideas through a series of first person experiences of applied science.

I have been isolating in place since March 11, 2020. With very few trips into the world other than neighborhood walks; my life has been spent indoors. Our son, like millions of people, has worked from home. School closings meant our neighbor's children were educated from home.

Anthes begins her journey at home, the "indoor jungle" of microbial and insect species that we share our space with. Of course, many of these originate in our own bodies! Our personal bacteria, and those of our pets (who introduce outdoor microbes) create a personal, unique biome that we recreate wherever we take domicile.

Next, Anthes stops at the hospital. Those bacteria we share in our home get shared in the hospital rooms, persisting even after cleaning. Sure, we have come a long way; what more can be done? Anyone who has been overnight in a hospital knows the issues: sounds and lights that prevent sleep and raise stress; the awful views of roofs or walls from the windows. Studies prove that patients recuperate quicker and better when they have private rooms with a view.

Buildings themselves lead to the health issues that send us to hospital care in the first place. Giving people ways to exercise, encouraging the use of walking and stairs can help. Starting in elementary schools. Anthes visited a school built to encourage movement and good eating choices.

Finding the balance between privacy and communal interaction is a continuing workplace challenge. Cubicles are being replaced by unassigned workstations. I remember wearing a sweater in summertime air conditioning, and short sleeves in overheated winter offices. What is the best option--working in a crowded room or isolated in a private office?

The chapter on building to accommodate all people, including the disabled and handicapped, has broadened to include people on the Autism Spectrum Disorder. Since every Autistic person has different needs, no one plant fits every need. We meet people seeking a space that allows independent living.

The history of prisons is a dark one, for even the 'improvements' were harsh. Quakers believed in reformation through isolation that allowed contemplation and repentance. The Philadelphia penitentiary built to enforce this isolation morphed into today's solitary confinement, which has proved to exacerbate mental health issues. Anthes visits a prison that feel home-like, with direct supervision and interaction between staff and inmates, have proven successful. Of course, the real solution to mass incarceration is investing in communities and addressing the root causes of crime.

Smart devices are all the rage. Some of us already are living a Jetsons life with high-tech homes. Robot vacuums and programmable appliances are fast becoming old technology. There are mirrors that can detect cardiovascular issues based on skin color. Senior residential floors that alert staff to falls. The implications are both comforting and disconcerting!

Soon after we moved into our retirement home, our community suffered a rare flood that destroyed thousands of home basements. It took years for most to haul out the damage and make repairs, with local contractors overwhelmed with work. We were lucky; situated on a hill, and having addressed basement cracks, we stayed dry. But for millions, flooding and rising water levels is a continual threat. It is amazing to read about floating homes and how houses can be retrofitted on a budget.

Last year I read about a woman's experience of live on Mars. Well, at least life in a biodome that recreated what it would be like to live in community on Mars. Scientists are studying what kind of buildings would be needed to live on the moon or on another planet. Even IKEA has been involved.

Every part of your life is addressed in The Great Indoors. Home, health, learning, independence, and the future.

I received a free book from the publisher through Goodreads.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I hoped to spend more time with the science of how indoor spaces affect us (like the title suggests), but the author actually spends most of her time advocating for different social causes like healthy school lunch programs and prison reform. Which is interesting, but that's not what I came to this title for. The limited time that we actually did get with the science of architecture, engineering design, and interior decorating wasn't very surprising (again, like the title suggests). I think that by now, most of us know that being by windows, having plants around, and living in a clean space are generally good for our health and mood.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

An overview of the latest research on how indoor spaces affect human behavior and health. It seemed like an appropriate book to read given the past year that we’ve all had. Emily Anthes visits retirement homes, housing for those on the autism spectrum, prisons, primary schools, and progressive companies to assess how buildings are performing and shaping the people who live and work in them. Much of the information here was not new to me, but that’s not necessarily Anthes’s fault, as this is a subject I am already interested in. I did appreciate her ability to go beyond the initial finding of a study and to question how valid it was—and, furthermore, to revisit spaces to see how well they were doing years after the new designs had launched. If anything, the book reinforced my current belief that it is very good for human beings to live and work with other human beings in spaces. It is not good for humankind to be alone, on screens, forever. 3.5 stars, rounded up.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each chapter has its own distinct focus on an aspect of the indoor world; from microbes to the psychology of office spaces and prisons. Each topic can easily be read as a stand-alone article but together the cover a wide range of topics with one general theme: to the environments we spend 90% of our lives in have a huge impact on our health and happiness. This is an easy to read book with such a diverse range of topics that it stays interesting even if you have prior knowledge in some of the subject areas.

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

TITLE: The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behavior, Health, and Happiness.
AUTHOR: Emily Anthes
PUBLICATION DATE: 2020
FORMAT: Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9780374166632
_____________________
DESCRIPTION:
"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 what—and how much—we 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. It's an argument for thoughtful interventions into the built environment and a story about how to build a better world—one room at a time."
______________________
REVIEW:

Anthes has written an interesting book with a casual writing style that explores the built environment, its psychological and physical effects on us, and how this built environment is being modified to accommodate various requirements. Anthes takes a look at projects that have modified schools, apartments, office spaces, retirement facilities, hospitals, correctional facilities and public spaces to be more accommodating and/or useful to the humans who live and work there. I found the last few chapters of the book particularly interesting. These chapters dealt with building cheap, easy to construct, sturdy permanent homes from cheaper and more natural products, to constructing and/or modifying existing homes that can float when necessary rather than be inundated by floods and storms, and the possibilities of living on Mars.

[Victoria Law · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended to me shortly after the covid pandemic began by a woman serving a long prison sentence, I figured this was an extremely appropriate book to read during shelter at home.
First, because it was one of 15 books I borrowed from the library, it sat in my To-Read stack for nearly a year.
I then made the mistake of reading the first chapter—about the microbes and bacteria in even the cleanest home (and I am far from June Cleaver)—shortly before bed. It freaked me out so much that, had it not been 1am, I might have started scouring my house. (I have no idea how anyone, living in a dirty and chaotic prison environment with few cleaning supplies And little control over others’ cleanliness, could get through that first chapter.)

I picked it up again last week because I’ve already renewed it 10 times (the library limit) and its due date is coming up. So it was either return it unread or read and return. And I have to say, I really liked it! There’s so much I don’t know about architecture and its possibilities, so I enjoyed seeing how people came up with creative solutions to social and political problems.

I agree with the author’s assessment that architecture can only go so far, and when talking about incarceration it still doesn’t address root issues. Still I’m sharing the chapter about jails with several incarcerated women to get their thoughts on how much architecture (and humane administration) might work among the people they’re surrounded by.

[Kay Glad · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book felt superficial, touching on cool experimental projects from over ten years ago as their "bleeding" edge ideas and general theories about the impact of indoor spaces. I would've prefered that they drilled down on the subject matter because it inadequately covers topics it clearly wants to discuss, such as indoor design's impact on criminals.

It felt very basic and the author very lazily just used the quotes from interviews and skirted around fact-checking by saying "X person believes "out of context quote," and barely made any efforts other than congested footnotes saying "a study in '15 with 30 people says differently, but who knows?"

Idk, I can't take any book that talks about how WeWork rocks seriously. This book chose a large topic and used very, very niche examples of people experimenting with indoor design without really going into history or definition of indoor/outdoor spaces but still wanted to be vaguely "liberal" or whatever by talking about how isolating prisoners is bad and that there's a "cool" prison in some Scandanavian country that lets prisoners have a decent time and treats them humanely. Like cool, we already knew about that, you're not offering any new insights other than you wanted to *also* include criminal justice in this clunky book.

[Kit Whelan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting topic, but not much I didn’t already know. I assumed this book would actually entail what we (normal humans) could do to affect our interior surroundings. That’s what the intro seems like, but the rest of the book mostly focuses on institutions (schools, prisons, workplaces) but with very few lessons for how you could apply it to your own life. It also seems like there were some pretty obvious topics (plants, air quality, etc) that she only touches on in passing. Would’ve been a good podcast.

[Alyx Butt · Rating 4 out of 5]

exactly what I want from a nonfiction book! Well-written and made me ponder aspects of life I typically move through on autopilot. Lots to chew on! Only critique is some sections definitely felt a bit repetitive and common sense without much added insight. Overall tho, super interesting read and def recommend

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pleasant and easy read but I really didn't think there was anything all that surprising in it.

The first chapter is about all the microbes and spiders in our houses.

Chapter 2 is about hospitals and if you are an industrial engineer, you will appreciate the reorganization of the surgery room. The author discusses some interesting designs for hospitals that sound very beneficial for patients and staff but also expensive.

In Chapter 3, the author gets into an issue that I have been screaming about my whole life: "Where are the stairs!" It's like architects hide them on purpose so we have to take the elevator. The author talks about active design to encourage healthy habits.

Chapter 4 got into office space. Researchers found out that open design plans in offices cause people to communicate in person less. Anyone who works in an office can tell you that. When you can't get privacy to get your work done then you tend to guard what privacy you do have more jealously.

I liked Chapter 5 because the author followed the design of a building that is specifically for people who have autism. Sound proofing in between floors and walls, areas designed specifically for getting together with people when you want to but still being able to have your private space when you need it, and no fluorescent lights. Sounds awesome to me. Also sounds expensive.

I sort of started to loose interest at this point when I realized there wasn't gonna be much scientific data. Chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 were about prison design, technological homes (think homes that can help you), homes that float or change with the earth or climate, and homes on Mars.

Any science this book contains is very soft. This is more just the author's research into a variety of unique buildings and anecdotes about the people who think them up, a worthwhile endeavor on it's own. The stuff I might call somewhat scientific (like the research into office space) was not "surprising" at all. This makes the subtitle very misleading. If you're looking for hard science about indoor spaces, it's just not here.

[Nicole · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve been fascinated with indoor spaces and how they influence us for years now. I’ve now written both my undergraduate and graduate theses with an emphasis on the house’s influence on the mind. So, I thought this would be a good read because it’s meant to discuss how the way places are built can influence our behaviour. I was upset to quickly find out that this book sucks any kind of human touch out of architecture, and makes one of my absolute favourite subjects absolutely soul-sucking to read about. It talks about optimisation: of our schools, our workplaces, and our living facilities. One person (who works for wework, by the way) interviewed for the book talks about an AI that can design workspaces that are more “productive” than any workspace designed by a human. How depressing to think of a space, completely devoid of any human touch, designed by a computer program in order to make you the most “productive” you can be. People become statistics in this book, and buildings become things that exist merely to produce data. An awful way to think about the spaces we occupy. The book only begins to vaguely hint at the power for building design to influence the mind in its final ten pages with a very brief discussion of how Gothic architecture, while being an “indoor space” and not the glorious outdoors (nature is heralded as a solution to many things in this book, despite its title), can cause feelings of inspiration. The rest is about optimisation, and presents solutions that I suspect will be rendered obsolete in a few decades. The writing was also not very good, and transition sentences were sloppily tacked on to the end of chapters in an attempt to create a smooth segue into the next.

I am very artistic-minded, and so this is just an expression of my reaction to the book’s contents given my background interest. If you are a science or statistics person, you will likely enjoy this book much more than I did. I stand by my insistence that this book is a bleak way of looking at the spaces that we inhabit every day.

[Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a descriptive book about experimental architecture projects that try to improve on living spaces in both pragmatic and unconventional ways. A lot of what is described are “concept art” projects, many will likely never make it mainstream, but it’s a great look into the creative world of indoor design.
I am so glad there are these people out there that are trying to innovate even seemingly functional designs, for the sake of making them even more beneficial for its inhabitants. So many people have conceived of architecture first as something to meet the basic needs of shelter, then maaaybe something esthetic, but there’s a whole new world out there of what more can be done with our homes and workplaces to make living in them an enjoyable experience. Not everything is completely thought through, usually hitting the wall of “too expensive” or “kind of dystopian”, but the world is a more interesting place because of such projects.
I could summarize a few of the specific projects (cognitively challenging apartments, amphibious houses in flood-prone areas), but ultimately the biggest takeaway from the book for me is what “experimental architecture” looks like, and encouraging the reader to not be satisfied with the status quo of the four walls they inhabit, if there’s room for improvement.

[Christa Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at how our environment shapes us. The inside environment, not "nature." Most humans spend the bulk of their time inside and the way that space functions, how it serves us is a key component in how productive we are, how healthy we are and how happy we are. Anthes studies workplaces, hospitals, correctional facilities, school and even our future homes on Mars. Each chapter is loaded with examples of ways we can improve our environs and why it matters.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book on how scientists and architects are looking to build better. The author looks at homes, apartments, workplaces, hospitals and prisons. It also considers different areas such as urban, suburban and rural areas. Groups of people who need specific accommodations such as the disabled and elderly are looked at too. Then of course space travel and possible living on Mars. Air travel as in planes were considered and food is no where to be found. But a nice book nonetheless.

[Andrew Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been very exciting for me. Emily Anthes has been very thorough in her research and it shows in the amount of notes and references she has in this book. This has inspired me to keep learning about ways that architecture can improve people’s lives and it has taught me that we aren’t done yet as society.

I’d recommend this to any student interested in the idea of architecture being used to improve lives and research involved.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly more of a 2.5, though I don’t want to round down. The title of this book would lead you to believe that it’s a bit more science and a bit less pie in the sky advocacy. Granted, it’s advocacy that I agree with, but still!

The first chapter is by far the most engaging for covering interior microbiomes. Everything else has a bit of a spoiled milk vibe only because you can tell that the text was written jusssssttt before covid hit.

[Chris Aylott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grab-bag guide to what's going on in user-centered architecture. Anthes does good reporting on the way microbes spread through homes, as well as better practices for the design of hospitals, prisons, offices, housing for different neurotypes, and more. As is often the case, the human-focused design that best supports various special needs would reduce stress and improve health for all of us.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I am spending so much time inside, I was curious to learn about the (art) & science of buildings. I really enjoyed the nerdy science (chapter 1) and the science fiction (final chapter) of it all--while our planet is changing dramatically, where will I seek shelter? This book was enjoyable, and I was surprised and a little sad when it ended!

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun review of the current research on how different environments shape our experiences.

I appreciated how multiple perspectives were considered, and research findings tempered by the limitations of the research, as well as considerations of the downsides of various approaches.

I found the chapter on prison design quite disturbing especially in light of real world examples (in the US no less) of pros/cons of a different approachs to prison design. The chapter on Mars felt a bit frivolous, until the author pointed out how the research could generate near term benefits to interiors designs on Earth.

The book did end a bit suddenly. I think it could have used a better recap/closing to tie together all the strands from each environment surveyed.

[Moira Allbritton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting chapters but not intriguing enough to keep me reading continuously. Took several breaks, and finally 0owered through last third.

Unlike my preferred nonfiction titles, this did not read like a narrative and often felt more like a textbook.

[Maggie Eguko · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book from a Goodreads giveaway and I learned so much from it. I am normally not a huge fan of nonfiction, case-based novels, but this book was very well-written. Each chapter was a different look into how buildings affect our mental health-from hospital rooms to schools to jail cells-and the research was very thorough and enlightening. I would have rated the book higher than three stars, however for me personally I did not find the topic very interesting.

[Dlmrose · Rating 3 out of 5]

3+

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential reading for interior designers

[Abbey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite fascinating...