Get in the mood to fully release.

INSIGHT (what we need)

Animals tend to linger in places where they feel the most safe, comfortable, and resource plenty. Instead of creating atmospheres designed to spike dopamine and induce cravings, retailers could design more peaceful ‘watering holes’ where people prefer to gather regularly.

Atmospherics, as it’s known in the world of retail, is the discipline of designing environments to entice a customer to buy. From harnessing attention, luring communication, enviable displays, seductive scents and careful placement…there is an art and science to creating an atmosphere to put people in the mood to spend money. There are even agencies that produce scents that apparently trigger the hoarding centers of our brains, signaling a “I absolutely neeeeed this!” unconscious response.

After all, we are rather susceptible blobs of nerve endings, attracted to signals that cause us to crave items that were less plentiful for most of our existence. If it’s not a daily practice to manage these impulses with discernment and detachment, then you’re a walking duck when entering any retail establishment today. Be forewarned. But don’t feel bad: it’s just your biology doing its thang.

Something rather beautiful happens though when we are no longer slaves to external stimuli. As many a nature adventurer, hermit or yogi can attest. When we shift gears in serene environments, we enter a discipline of sensing internally the subtle shifts that act as a barometer for our intuition. We begin to learn the freedom of internal guidance towards only the necessary for our energy to be replenished. Our internal GPS’s then pull us towards the environments, people and things that we can attune to without a sense of craving or aversion. An atmosphere of just being yourself.

INSPIRATION (what we want)

Barangaroo Harbour Park: First Nations-led Team to transform Sydney’s Waterfront drawing from wisdom traditions that revere our living systems to regenerate the land. 

Team AKIN (comprised of first-nations led design teams and consultants) will integrate indigenous knowledge systems to reinvigorate the human-nature connection of a centrally-located 1.85 hectare public park. Respecting the rich heritage of the original place used by Gadigal peoples for hunting, fishing, canoeing, swimming and gathering – this design team are creating a “place of connection, reconciliation, and regeneration.”

• Ecological systems will be supported so that flora and fauna will ‘rewild’ more insects, birds, and other fauna to return back to a more habitable space.

• Native plant species will feature prominently, along with endemic grasses; with smart water systems that create more natural filtration and runoff to nourish the soil before being returned to the harbour.

• Indigenous culture will also be celebrated with public artworks expressing the importance of our natural elements creating a point of connection for people.

• More than a relaxing city attraction touting benefits to urbanite wellbeing, this place is being designed to acknowledge the wise experience of the original peoples while dreaming of a collective future, revering the ancient stories from which the city was built upon.

Perhaps inspiration to the coastline developers who will build back Maui in all her original glory. Here is a way to donate towards relief before rebuilding: https://www.mauiola.org 

INNOVATION (what we wish for)

Foliage Toilets: biophilic washroom atmosphere that induces complete, relaxed defecation the way nature intended.  

Some times life is really simple. And the sense of accomplishment of a day (or punning shittyness) can rest entirely on having (or not) a smooth and complete bowel movement of champions. Our modern public environments truly do not have the atmospherics for this important duty (or doo-ty. Yup…here all day).

In fact, current design often hinders the ultimate goal here 💩. Most toilet environments are designed for plumbing and hygiene ease on the public side, and luxurious opulence on the hospitality side. Though neither need to be compromised in designing towards human-centered release. Common denominators that hinder this include: sitting on white porcelain thrones at 90 degree angles that pinch our colons (click here on that gripe), acoustics bouncing off tiled or marbled walls, thin walls where you can sense other people, bright fluorescent lights feeling like a performance spotlight, occasional music that makes your body (not bowels) want to move, and overpowering chemical fresheners that cause you to clench up rather than release. Man-made bizarreness borrowed from egoic royal legacies centuries ago. Instead, imagine yourself entering the kind of atmosphere that would cause your nervous system to completely relax, as you do in nature:

• Sealed stalls or insulated rooms with real plants of thick foliage away from loud activity – mimicking places our ancient ancestors would likely ‘go’ for that private moment.

• Low bowl or assisted leg raises that mimic the squat position most supportive for full release.

• Sounds of other small animals at ease, notifying you that there are no predators in the environs. Perhaps even engineered scent scapes that cause regions in the brain to move into parasympathetic dominance.

• Air filtration that acts like gusts of a light breeze to prevent any stagnancy and enriched oxygenated air that makes you want to breathe deeply, rather than the shallow breathing we normally do in unfamiliar bathrooms.

• Taking lessons from NASA to create an eco-system of balanced micro-organisms and phytochemicals through plant selection that filters the air of VOCs, airborne pathogens and surface bacteria for circular cleaning.