Big news… We’re buying/building a home!
As someone who’s rented his entire life (my parents never got the chance to own), this is super exciting and extremely scary all at the same time. Not surprisingly, I’m most excited about envisioning the endless possibilities of creating a movement-rich environment and a dedicated studio space to work from. I find that the best strategy for changing behavior is to change the characteristics of our physical and social environment. I believe there is a designer in all of us and it’s up to us to create our own version of the world we want to live in.
Environment matters.
Make it yours.
↓↓↓
READ, WATCH, LISTEN ⤵
WATCH: Playing With Cubes
(Length: 3 mins)
Of course, I can share a million clips that exemplify interacting with your environment, but I found this Ido Portal clip from 14 years ago. These older clips Ido used to share are somewhat nostalgic because they were my gateway into this holistic movement perspective.
READ: Affordances for Movement by
(Reading Time: ~2-3mins)
Ecological psychology is an approach to understanding human perception and behavior that emphasizes the fact that humans are fully “embedded” in their environments. It was developed to correct a perceived blindspot in traditional psychology, which was overly focused on explaining behavior purely in terms of internal events in the brain. Ecological psychology shifts emphasis away from the question: “what’s inside your head?”, and toward a different question: “what’s your head inside of?”
WATCH: It’s Not You. Bad Doors Are Everywhere
(Length: 5.5 mins)
Have you ever walked up to a door to try to open it and nothing happens? Well, it turns out there’s a name for these types of doors - they’re called “Norman Doors.” Doors shouldn't need instructions – the shape of them should be able to guide you through just fine. So it can be frustrating when you go to pull a handle only to find out that you must push the door to open it.
“There are a couple really basic principles of design, and one of them I’ll call discoverability. When I look at something, I should be able to discover what operations I can do. The principle applies to a whole lot more than doors.”
AESTHETICALLY PLEASING 👀
William Forsythe’s “The Fact of Matter”
Last week I shared the work of William Forsythe and ended up going down a rabbit hole of his work. ‘The Fact of Matter’ is an installation of hundreds of gymnastics rings inside a room to have people engage with the exhibit by traversing the space only using the rings.
“Once you put yourself into this, let's call it a system, you will discover that these three qualities—your strength, your weight, and your coordination—are not as unified as you'd like them to probably be in this situation. On the other hand, you can watch other people do it and think about their strategies… For the people inside ‘Fact of Matter‘ you'll discover that it really is a strategic project. You're going to have to develop a strategy, and there won't be processing space in your head for other things like your tax returns.” ~William Forsythe
TINY INSIGHT 🧠
“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.” ~Steve Jobs
👨🏻💻 Ways we can work together…
If you’re looking to start a project and make it yours: logo, website, social media visuals, workshop presentation, online course, etc. Hit ‘Reply’ and let me know how I can help. Or let’s chat for 30 minutes about it… no strings attached.
•••
To Making It Yours,
Galo Alfredo Naranjo
P.S. Pair this issue with Issue #23: Design Is All Around Us
P.P.S. I’m creating a “movement-rich” mood board for the new house if you’re into that kind of thing.
Love the fact of matter idea