Domains of Environmental Psychology 425The feeling of being at home is closely connected to a
feeling of well-being and varies with the extent of the spatial
representation of the neighborhood. A spatially narrow repre-
sentation is correlated with a weak affective investment in the
neighborhood (Fleury-Bahi, 1997, 1998). The degree of sat-
isfaction felt with three of a neighborhood’s environmental
attributes (green spaces, aesthetics of the built framework,
and degree of noise) has an effect on the intensity of the af-
fectivity developed toward it, as well as feelings of well-
being. The feeling of being at home in one’s neighborhood is
linked to the frequency of encounters, the extent of the sphere
of close relations, the nature of local relationships, and satis-
faction with them. Low and Altman (1992) argued that the
origin and development of place attachment is varied and
complex, being influenced by biological, environmental,
psychological, and sociocultural processes. Furthermore, the
social relations that a place signifies may be more important
to feelings of attachment than the place itself.
Besides the home and neighborhood environments, other
domains involve a problematic congruence between people
and their environment (e.g., work, classroom, and institu-
tional environments such as hospitals, prisons, and homes for
children or the elderly). How can these environments be de-
signed to meet the needs of their occupants? We illustrate this
by examining one setting—the workplace.
Environmental Psychology in the Workplace
Increasing attention is being paid to the design of the work-
place so that it matches more effectively the organization’s
goals and cultural aspirations as well as employee needs and
job demands and performance. There has been a long history
of research into the workplace (Becker, 1981; Becker and
Steele, 1995; Sundstrom, 1987; Wineman, 1986). Indeed, the
famousHawthorne effectfirst noted in the 1920s emerged
from a study of the effect of illumination on productivity.
Since then there have been many studies examining the am-
bient work environment and investigating the impact of
sound, light, furniture layout, and design on performance and
job satisfaction. It is now recognized that the environment,
space, and design can operate at a subtler level and have an
impact on issues such as status, reward, and the promotion of
corporate culture.
Decisions about space use and design should be examined
for their embedded assumptions regarding how they will en-
hance or detract from the organization’s goals and values. In
other words, whose assumptions underlie the design and
management of space, and what are the implications of
space-planning decisions? The relationship between the or-
ganization’s culture, the physical planning of the buildings
or offices, and the feel, look, and use of the facilities becomes
most apparent especially when there is a mismatch. A mis-
match often occurs when a new building is planned according
to criteria such as these: How many people should it accom-
modate? How many square feet should it occupy? How much
equipment should it have? How should it look to visitors?
Questions typically posed and addressed by environmental
psychologists have a different emphasis: Will the designs and
space layout enhance or detract from the desired corporate
work styles? Is the organization prepared to accept that em-
ployees have different working styles and that these should
be catered to in the provision of space and facilities? How
much control does the organization currently exert over its
employees’ use of time and space? To what extent are em-
ployees permitted to modify their own environment so that it
enables them to do their job more effectively? In what way,
for whom, and how does the management and design permit,
encourage, or enhance the following: personal and group
recognition, environmental control (heating, lighting, venti-
lation, amount and type of furniture, personalized space), so-
cial integration and identity, communication within the
working group, communication with other working groups,
and appropriate levels of privacy? How are issues such as in-
dividual and group identity; individual capacities, needs, and
preferences; and working patterns reflected in space planning
and the allocation of environmental resources? Is space and
resource allocation used as a means of reflecting and re-
warding status and marking distinctions between job clas-
sifications? Is the organization prepared to redefine its
understanding of equity and provide space and facilities on
the basis of need rather than status?
There are many ways of looking at the relationship be-
tween corporate culture and physical facilities. The effective
use of the organization’s resources lies not in fitting the staff
to the workplace but in recognizing that there will be a trans-
action between staff and workplace so that if the employee
cannot or will not be forced into the setting, they will either
attempt to modify the setting so that it does approximate more
closely their working needs and preferences or become dis-
satisfied, disaffected, and unproductive. For example, instead
of assigning an employee just one space, consideration
should be given to permitting if not encouraging. Instead of
working in just one place (e.g., a desk), some companies are
giving employees access to a number of spaces (e.g., hot
desking) that will allow them to undertake their tasks and
with more satisfaction and effectiveness. Within such an
arrangement staff cannot claim territorial rights over specific
spaces but are regarded as temporary lodgers for as long as
they need that space: informal privacy spaces for talking to
clients and colleagues; quiet, comfortable spaces for writing