A brief review on the mental health for select elements of the built environment

Abstract

Global urbanization, combined with evidence of increased prevalence of mental illness in urban environments, highlights a need to investigate potential connections between the built environment and mental health. Previous research has shown that the built environment may impact occupant mental health through its effects on connection to nature, personal control and indoor air quality. Contact with the natural environment has physiological and psychological benefits; consequently, reduced contact or exposure leads to negative mental health outcomes. The control an occupant has in the built environment can alter the mental health of individuals through direct pathways, such as prevention of exposures to environmental stressors and indirect pathways, such as social connections to others. Indoor air quality is connected to the mental health of built environment occupants, as particulate matter, malodorous irritants and toxins have all been shown to alter mental well-being. Opportunities for architects and engineers to optimize building designs that improve occupant mental health include planned urban greenspace, personalized temperature control and building ventilation. To understand optimization targets, interdisciplinary research utilizing controlled experiments are needed to confirm causality and improve our current understanding of mechanisms underlying the association between the built environment and mental health.

Effects of built environment on healing the mental health of the people–literature review

“…It reduces mental stress when an individual can physically manipulate the environment by having direct control over the arrangement of furniture, lighting and temperature, etc. (Becker, 1985;Beemer et al, 2019). Lack of interaction can also bring negative outcomes in a person's mental health.…”

Exploring Intraindividual Profiles for Home Buildings Based on Architectural Compositional Elements and Psychological Health Factors: A Transdisciplinary Approach

“…These compositional elements have been profusely investigated (e.g., [24,[32][33][34]41,42,51]), establishing the associations between them and the perceptions and experiences they evoke having a specific impact on mental health. According to Dietrich's categorization of the compositional elements (i.e., shapes, lines, lighting, colors, materials, texture, mass, and space) [52], some research exists on simple shapes [53,54], complex shapes [35,36,[55][56][57], organic shapes [40,58], color ranges [56,[59][60][61][62], color saturation and intensity [63][64][65][66], light intensity [40,67], type of light [68][69][70][71][72], the openings [9,37,68,[73][74][75][76][77], materials [61,[78][79][80], order and rhythm [81,…”

A Systematic Review on Indoor Environmental Quality in Naturally Ventilated School Classrooms: A Way Forward

“…However, most of the IEQ studies done in India and around the globe focus on residential and commebuildings [7], whereas research studies on school buildings are scarce in India. e overall indoor environmental quality of a regularly occupied space in the long term is determined by ergonomics, indoor thermal comfort, electromagnetic radiation level, quality of indoor air, acoustic comfort, hygiene, visual comfort, furniture-space layout, micro/macroorganisms, and aesthetics [8,9]. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) 2013 [10], IEQ is defined as "the quality of a building's environment concerning the health and wellbeing of its occupants and includes aspects of design, analysis, and operation that lead to energy-efficient, healthy, and comfortable buildings.…”