What makes a place idyllic/beautiful?

To make places that people love, we must keep “the users”—the people—and their experience at the center of the design. Researchers (and common sense) tell us we love being in beautiful places. People go out of their way and pay more money to go to beautiful places. We’re told beauty is subjective—and plenty of it is—but here you’ll find some of the most universal principles of places we call beautiful.

Start with (an) end in mind

Imagining a magazine spread from the beginning can be a helpful place to start. Beauty is immeasurable and infinite but here are some “rules” of photography and photo styling that can be applied to make places more picturesque, literally. From the beginning of the design process, imagine a handful of hero images (the ones in the magazine write up, ad, or on your website) of the places you make. Designing a place that will make beautiful photographs generally sets you up for a pretty magical moment in real life, too. The main difference you have to remember in place making is that you need to use more restraint. You are setting the stage. Leave room for life and the transient to fill in and sometimes be your focal point.

What matters most in deciding where to live?

In his book, Who’s Your City, Richard Florida cites his Place and Happiness Survey where he asked Americans what matters most to them in their communities. Below are the results, ranked in order of importance. Notice that aesthetics is ranked number one.

How to make an attractive city

Since aesthetics are the top priority people named, let’s look at Alain de Button's excellent manifesto on how to make attractive cities. He highlights six design principles:

Avoid stress in the environment

Attention restoration theory

Humans thrive with some stress (eustress) but we cannot safely cope with too much stress (distress). So much of modern life: work deadlines, traffic, making decisions, judgement calls, interacting with strangers, over 5000 advertisements a day...take our focused attention. Focused attention uses, and wears out, the same specific parts of the brain. But nature seems to give the perfect antidote. Nature is full of “soft fascinations”–clouds moving, leaves rustling, flowers swaying–that are interesting to look at but demand nothing of us (effortless attention). Effortless attention uses other parts of the brain, allowing the focused attention parts to rest, replenish, and restore.

To make “healing gardens” in hospitals, studies are finding a ratio of at least 7:3 greenery to hard surfaces to be most effective. “Less greenery signals a ‘plaza or shopping mall courtyard’ and is not as relaxing.” (source) But what if we applied the same ideas to any project? Could we make a “healing town” or “healing village”?

Biophilic design

Below are some of the most relevant of the 70+ qualities of settings/environments that studies have shown to positively effect people's sense of well-being. These characteristics are thought to be hardwired into our preferences over millennia of evolution and survival. Focusing on one or even a few of these qualities in a space will make a significant positive impact–it's not like you have to use all of these qualities at once for them to be effective.

Summary

Though we find different things beautiful based on our culture, values, and needs at any given time, there are some design principles that tend to be safe bets for extremely broad appeal based on our shared general neurology. Providing a sense of order, harmony, surprise, and strong connection with nature will light up people’s brains in the best ways and cause people to say, “Wow…this is beautiful!”