Wellness Architecture: How Interiors Shape the Mind, Body and Nervous System
- Jun 11
- 5 min read
Wellness architecture is often spoken about in soft or intuitive terms, but emerging research in neuroarchitecture gives us a more precise way to understand how the built environment affects human experience.
The spaces we inhabit do not simply influence us metaphorically. They create measurable responses in the mind and body.
Researchers have used psychological rating scales, behavioural studies and brain imaging, including functional MRI scans, to explore how people respond to architectural interiors. In the study Psychological and Neural Responses to Architectural Interiors, Coburn et al. identified that aesthetic experiences in the built environment are associated with three major neural systems: knowledge-meaning, emotion-valuation and sensorimotor systems (Coburn et al., 2020).
In practical terms, these systems relate to three broad areas of human experience:
Cognition Emotion Behaviour
Cognition is how we interpret and make sense of a space. Emotion is how we feel within it. Behaviour is how a space motivates us to move, approach, retreat, explore or stay.
This matters because it gives designers and researchers a clearer framework for understanding what architecture is actually doing to the human experience.
In the study, participants assessed architectural interiors using a range of aesthetic rating scales. These included cognitive measures such as complexity, organisation, modernity, naturalness and beauty. They also included behavioural measures such as interest, approachability and explorability (Coburn et al., 2020).
Most importantly for wellness-focused design, the research identified eight measures of emotional experience in the built environment (Coburn et al., 2020). :
personalness
hominess
relaxation
comfort
stimulation
uplift
vitality
valence
These emotional responses are not vague impressions. They are part of a growing body of research attempting to understand how the brain and body process space.
This helps explain why a room can feel calm, cold, energising, oppressive, restorative or emotionally flat before we can fully explain why. Our response is shaped by a combination of sensory information, memory, emotion, perception and embodied experience.
Openness, Sightlines and a Sense of Safety
Research into openness and spatial enclosure suggests that humans tend to respond positively to environments that provide clear lines of sight and visual connection to the outdoors. One hypothesis is that this preference is evolutionary: we feel safer in spaces where we can understand our surroundings, see potential movement or threat, and remain connected to the external environment rather than feeling enclosed or cut off from it (Coburn et al., 2020).
Higher ceilings can also influence psychological responses to interiors. Studies have associated higher ceilings with increased perceptions of spaciousness and higher beauty ratings, with researchers suggesting that vertical volume can evoke a sense of freedom, openness and possibility (Coburn et al., 2020).
In the built environment, this does not mean every space needs to be large, open or exposed. The real application is more nuanced. Wellness-focused design can create a sense of openness through clear sightlines, framed views to gardens or sky, layered thresholds, natural light, visual connection between rooms, and planning that avoids unnecessary compression.
At the same time, these open qualities can be balanced with areas of refuge, privacy and containment, so the space feels both expansive and emotionally safe.
Curves, Geometry and the Body’s Response
Research has also explored geometric contour, including the difference between curved and rectilinear forms. Curved interiors have been shown to activate areas of the visual cortex, and researchers hypothesise that people may prefer curved forms because they are more commonly found in natural environments (Coburn et al., 2020).
In design terms, this does not require an interior to become overtly organic or decorative. It might appear through a curved wall, rounded furniture, softened joinery, arched openings, circular circulation, or the removal of harsh visual edges.
These subtle spatial choices can change how the body feels within a room. A space with softened geometry may feel more approachable, more fluid or less visually harsh than one dominated by rigid edges and hard transitions.
Naturalness, Pattern and Visual Complexity
The same applies to naturalness. Studies into natural patterns in architecture suggest that people respond positively to visual features that echo the structure of nature, including scaling, contrast, rhythm and variation (Coburn et al., 2019).
Researchers have found that these qualities can influence whether a space is perceived as more natural and aesthetically pleasing. In particular, buildings and interiors with higher degrees of scaling and contrast are often perceived as more natural (Coburn et al., 2019).
This is important because exposure to nature has been linked to improved mood, reduced stress, better concentration, increased vitality and a stronger sense of wellbeing. While a built environment cannot replace nature, it can borrow from the sensory qualities that make natural environments feel restorative.
In this research, the naturalistic qualities of architectural scenes were measured through specific visual characteristics, including:
Edge density — the number of straight and curved edges within a scene.
Fractal dimension — the visual complexity of those edge patterns.
Entropy — the level of randomness or variation within a scene.
Hue — the average colour appearance of a scene.
Saturation — the intensity of colour within a scene.
Brightness — the average luminance, or lightness, of a scene.
Variation in hue, saturation and brightness — the diversity of colour and light across the scene.
Together, these measures help explain why some architectural environments feel more natural than others. Nature is rarely flat or overly uniform; it contains layered edges, tonal variation, rhythm, contrast and complexity. When architecture reflects these qualities, even subtly, it can feel more connected to the natural world.
For designers, the application is not simply to add plants. It is to consider how the entire visual field is composed.
Natural materials, layered textures, tonal contrast, filtered light, organic variation, repeated patterns at different scales, varied edge conditions, and a balance between complexity and order can all contribute to a more restorative spatial experience.
A space may feel more natural not because it literally imitates a forest or garden, but because it contains the visual richness, rhythm and layered complexity that the human brain associates with natural environments.
From Research to Real Spaces
This is where wellness architecture becomes more than a style. It becomes an evidence-informed design approach.
It asks how a space is likely to be processed by the mind and body. Does it support comfort? Does it create uplift? Does it feel personal and emotionally resonant? Does it encourage vitality without overstimulation? Does it feel safe, open, restorative and worth spending time in?
The real application of this research is not to design interiors according to a formula. It is to understand that every spatial decision has the potential to affect human experience.
A ceiling height, a sightline, a curve, a threshold, a material, a texture, a window, a shadow line or a pattern can all influence the way a person feels in a room.
The most powerful interiors are not only beautiful in photographs. They are spaces that create measurable, meaningful and embodied responses in the people who use them.
For me, this is the heart of wellness-focused design: creating interiors that do more than function beautifully. They support the way people feel, move, restore and live.
References
Coburn, A., Vartanian, O., Kenett, Y. N., Nadal, M., Hartung, F., Hayn-Leichsenring, G., Navarrete, G., González-Mora, J. L., & Chatterjee, A. (2020). Psychological and neural responses to architectural interiors. Cortex, 126, 217–241. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2020.01.009
Coburn, A., Kardan, O., Kotabe, H., Steinberg, J., Hout, M. C., Robbins, A., MacDonald, J., Hayn-Leichsenring, G., & Berman, M. G. (2019). Psychological responses to natural patterns in architecture. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 62, 133–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2019.02.007
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