The Psychological Impacts of Interacting with Nature-Based Design

Our modern society is filled with stressful stimuli that impact our daily lives, and lead to problems that eventually threaten our mental and psychological wellbeing. Expanding urban life and urbanizing people's interactions have drastically increased and resulted in more stressful circumstances. Unfortunately, the role of nature and nature-based design in our urban societies as an alternative in reducing the impact of unhealthy and stressful situations produced by our modern and urbanized life style has been neglected. Considering the fact that human beings are social creatures and their surroundings affect them both mentally and psychologically; hence, the study of psychological impacts of nature and nature-based design is both essential and necessary in our fast evolving urban societies. This research investigates nature-based design and the short-term observational impacts and benefits of urban societies' interaction with nature on different aspects of human psychology including perceived restoratives’, mental health and vitality and creativity. The participants in the two sample groups observed two different urban areas. One was a building complex in Isfahan city center and the other was an urban park in Isfahan. In the end, the participants filled out a comprehensive psychological questionnaire assessing the effects environment on different dimensions of human psyche. Our results demonstrate that even short-term interaction with nature and nature-based designs had positive effects one's psychological wellbeing, and therefore, our finding show that urban designs and architecture intertwined with nature were crucial in protecting and improving human mental health and wellbeing.