GROHE X Panel Talk  

Impactful environment – How to help a stressed world with healing architecture?

Most of us experience stress at certain times. While some of that stress results from our own concerns and thought processes, a lot of it is foisted on us by our environment. We are exposed to countless visual and aural stimuli in the course of our daily lives. Even the simple act of being in a public or social space has been, until recently, a cause for worry. So can the built environment be designed in such a way as to alleviate our stress and promote healing? 

Today’s panel talk takes the possibility of a genuinely healing architecture as its starting point. Since time immemorial public spaces have been created with lofty ideals: think of the great cathedrals built to produce both awe and a mood of contemplation in their occupants. But would one say they were designed to make us feel good about ourselves? What would a space created to enhance personal fulfilment be like? 

Our panel approach the question from the perspective of their own fields of expertise, whether looking at the impact of the right kind of products on our wellbeing, or concentrating on the aesthetic impact of a certain design scheme. They will also look at the effects on our health, both positive and negative, that our surroundings might have. And the practice of mindfulness will be discussed, as will the kind of space that might facilitate a mindful state. 

We are at a moment in architecture and design when people are certainly asking more of the spaces they inhabit, both public and private, and the responses will be interesting.