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Effect of the degree of wood use on the visual psychological response of wooden indoor spaces

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Abstract

The exhausting fast pace of life in modern urban society is leading to overwhelming stress and diminished cognitive alertness. Moreover, people are spending more and more time indoors due to building densification and urban lifestyle. Therefore, indoor environments that can promote positive psychological perception will become more important. Use of wood in indoor settings and its health benefits are currently receiving increased attention from design and research communities. In this work, a comparative study was conducted on the different degrees of wood use in indoor spaces. The results show that the effect of the physical attributes of degree of wood use, wood coverage and change of wood surface (different type and application position of wood) on the visual psychological responses (visual attention and psychological impression) of wooden indoor spaces were significant. The wooden indoor spaces with medium degree of wood use were easier to get more visual attention and were more helpful to give people the psychological impression of naturalness, warmth, relaxation, and desire to use. In addition, the results also show that when considering the influence of change of wood surface, people tended to pay more attention to indoor spaces with relatively high wood coverage and preferred the experiences in such spaces. The change of wood surface was an all-important aspect that needs to be considered on top of wood coverage. These results provided guidance for the design of healthy indoor environments.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by China Scholarship Council (No. 201906120534). The authors are thankful to Sini Chen at CCTN Design for the assistance with the experiments, and to Zhaoyan Cui (Nanjing Forestry University) and Mengxuan Li (Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Natural Resources) for their suggestions for this article. We would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. Furthermore, thankful to the research on the protection and inheritance of art forms in intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities in Heilongjiang basin for their support (No. 18MZB064).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Cold Region Urban and Rural Human Settlement Environment Science and Technology, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, 150006, China

    Jing Li, Jianmei Wu & Hongpeng Xu

  2. Department of Wood Science, The University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada

    Frank Lam & Chao Zhang

  3. Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, The Bartlett, University College London (UCL), London, WC1H 0NN, UK

    Jian Kang

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  1. Jing Li
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Correspondence to Hongpeng Xu.

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Li, J., Wu, J., Lam, F. et al. Effect of the degree of wood use on the visual psychological response of wooden indoor spaces. Wood Sci Technol 55, 1485–1508 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00226-021-01320-7

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