Aesthetic of environment (work)

What we’ve been reading, and watching and listening to, this week is about making the work environment more conducive to our nature by implementing nature – and design – into the work space. If we’re more relaxed, comfortable, and feel connected to the world around us – again, nature – we are more productive. The thing is, our world of work has radically changed over time. This is not just because we’ve caught on to the psychological influence of being in a dull and enclosed environment, but we’ve also been subjected to an unprecedented shift in our work. Covid hit. When everything shut down, and we all went home, the return to work was not just going back to the “office” once it was considered safe to do so (in whatever capacity that means). Many people, including myself, began working from home more frequently. Some now work at home and in their place of business, depending on the work. Some work entirely from home. And some work wherever their work takes them. Wherever a person works, especially when it takes up so much of one’s time, should be a pleasant place to be. We get that now, as our video on biophilic design, pointed out. The question is, have we evolved enough to put that understanding fully into practice, or are we still, at least some of us, still struggling to find a balance between our need to connect with nature and our need to make a living?

So consider a work environment that you know, or know of, quite well. It could be your own room (where you do all this school stuff), where you work, or someone else works (it could even be from a TV show you enjoy). Explain the aesthetics – the whole environment – in as much detail as you can.

For example, I’m sitting here in my office in my house, where I do most of my work these days because of remote or online teaching, and I have three windows and a door to let natural light come in. I’m big on natural light because my aging eyes see better under the influence of the sun (and sometimes the moon, if my werewolf instincts are inspired by a full one). The door and two of these windows look out over our backyard, where we have a garden. The third window, behind me over my right shoulder, has an eight-foot high fence about three feet from it, which marks the boundary between our house and the neighbors’ yard (it’s their fence); while this is not the most ideal thing to look at, the fence is slotted to allow light to come in and half of the window, from the angle I’m sitting, only shows sky, so it ain’t all that bad. Now the inside of my office has a lot of “stuff” in it – two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves with the main garden-view window between them, a cabinet underneath the window that has doors to hold and hide a lot of the crap I’ve collected over the years, and more shelves and another cabinet behind me for most of my work stuff and family photos. Yeah, there’s a couch fronted by a designer sculpted metal coffee table (inherited), an antique dresser and book case, and this desk I’m sitting at (in a chair, of course), so the room, because it’s not that big, is fairly cluttered. There’s a lot of old mixed with the new because of family mementos I’m not willing to part with and other crap – bike gear and taxes at the moment – that I’m not willing to put away. When I’m busy, stuff piles up in here. As long as I focus on what I see outside and don’t pay attention to to the excess in here, I feel relaxed. When I see the stuff I haven’t found a place for – storage or garbage – I get a little anxious. So I go upstairs and ignore it all – until the next day.

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