Interior Environment Design Method for Positive Mental Health in Lockdown Times: Color, Textures, Objects, Furniture and Equipment

• Published in: Designs 2022-04, Vol.6 (2), p.35
• Main Authors: Martín López, Lucía, Fernández Díaz, Ana Belén
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anxiety; built environment; Color; confinement; Coronaviruses; Cotton; COVID-19; Customer satisfaction; Design; Emotions; environment design; Furniture; housing; Indoor environments; Loneliness; Mental depression; Mental health; Pandemics; Population; Psychology; Quality of life; Stress; Trends; way of living
• ISSN: 2411-9660; 2411-9660
• DOI: 10.3390/designs6020035

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak of a COVID-19 pandemic accompanied by a series of mass lockdowns. Some of the consequences of these lockdowns were (1) psychological problems, (2) development of simultaneous activities in spaces not prepared for it, and (3) indoor spaces that generate negative emotions in people. To improve people’s mental health during times of lockdown, this research proposes a methodology to design positive interior environments through color, texture, objects, furniture, and equipment. For this, 147 qualitative surveys were carried out, the structure of which is based on research methods and tools inherited from marketing discipline (Likert Scale and Customer Satisfaction Score). Several operative graphs were created to make decisions on the design of interior environments. To avoid some of the problems caused by indoor environments during lockdowns it is recommended that users return to paying attention to the design of the interior spaces of their homes. Note that there is no standard solution to this problem, but a method to design interior environments based on people’s positive mental health such as the one presented here can help. The trends found in this work open a field of exploration towards the improvement of interior spaces through neutral colors, natural materials (cotton and wood) and objects with which emotional relationships are created, either with the objects (collections) or because they allow you to connect with other people (technology). It is considered necessary to continue with the research by expanding the sample to incorporate into the analysis the most vulnerable sectors of population during COVID-19 lockdowns.