Negar Ebrahimi

HEI: University of Edinburgh

Project Title: Spatial Narratives of Happiness in Everyday Environments

Link to Institutional Repository of thesis: Negar Ebrahimi

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What was your research about?

The study participants provided positivenarrations of flow-inducing places including places that ease the engagement of all senses as well as the natural settings including waterfronts and greenspaces. The results also shed light on the role of memories on positive or negative affect generated by users’ individual and social recollections and the happiness that could stem from familiarity, attachment or taking pride in a place. Furthermore, urban settings that facilitate social connection and provide infrastructures of citywide attempts at setting identity or expressing people’s anxieties and desires to the mechanisms of power were appreciated by the study’s participants. The significance of this study is in recognising that collaborating closely with people who have lived experience of spatial settings remains essential to ensure that the undertaking research and designing solutions fit people’s requirements and hopes. The study, involving more than 100 participants in exploratory methods, was able to put in context a set of professional practices that demonstrate the role these methods could play in design and architecture and how we can combine social and spatial values with research and intervention; for the challenging yet rewarding recognition of spatial happiness.

 

Keywords: spatial happiness, happiness, qualitative, narratives, happy places