Cheryl Atkinson

When considering a building, many of us think about how it looks, how cool or warm it keeps us, and how the walls insulate us from noise. But do we think about how the buildings we inhabit affect us emotionally or psychologically?

Cheryl Atkinson encourages her students to figure out why through phenomenology: the study of how a building’s composition, proportion, materials and colours come together and make us feel and think. The impact can be major. Because of its psychological effect, for example, access to daylight and a view have been proven to help reduce the mental stress of hospital patients, while colour, material texture and the  arrangement of space can delight, comfort or exhilarate us.

Through the incorporation of “freespace”—well-designed places both inside and outside of our buildings to lounge and interact—Atkinson points out that social connections can also be forged through architecture, and she encourages her students to include this type of design in every project. “After all,” she says, “it’s the creation of a relationship between buildings and society that makes architecture such a powerful force for good.”