Rosemann Josef S. - Happy

Design can help us lead a happy life

It is up to you to design your home to support a way of life that appeals to you. I believe the perfectly designed building displays optimism, self-confidence, hope, compassion, purpose and empathy all qualities any design can have. You just have to learn how. And doing so will change your life.

In this thought-provoking and beautiful book, Amanda Talbot immerses herself in the science and psychology behind the concept of happy design. She reveals how designers and architects are striving to understand the complexities of what makes us happy, and creating intelligent, joyous living spaces that speak to our hearts as much as to our heads. This is is a book brimming with ideas. As well as interviews with designers and home owners, and an abundance of inspirational images, it features a rich layer of checklists, reflection ections and up-to-the-minute research. Ultimately, Amanda challenges all of us to take stock of our lives and start down the path to creating our own happy home.

Amanda Talbot is an internationally recognised stylist, design consultant and trend forecaster. She is the author of Rethink: The Way You Live (Murdoch Books, 2012). After ten years in London working with Livingetc and ELLE Decoration, and consulting to UK design icon Ilse Crawford and IKEA, she returned to Australia to take up a judging role on Channel 9s Top Design.

Contents

HAPPINESS

IS THE MEANING

AND

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE,

THE WHOLE AIM AND

THE END OF HUMAN

EXISTENCE.

Aristotle, Ethics

About happiness

The only thing most of us want is to be happy. I came to this conclusion in 2012, when I wrote my previous book, Rethink: The Way You Live . After researching major living trends around the world I realised that, although there were different tribes of people taking various paths, they all had one goal they wanted to be happy. It was an aha moment for me. For many years I have investigated how good and bad design can affect our emotions, so it suddenly became obvious that if all we really want in life is happiness, then surely design can play a vital role.

Over the years Ive visited institutions for the sick and the homeless and I have seen how buildings that are poorly designed can agitate and frustrate people and even prolong illness. So, what happens if we create spaces that are calming and soothing, which provoke confidence, empathy, security, pride, creativity or motivation? Surely this could help us on the path to happiness?

When I began researching this book, the first thing I decided to do was to hold my own Happy Poll. I wanted to understand what people around the world thought about happiness, and if they thought good design could make them happy. I surveyed 166 people from all walks of life, from several countries, so I could be armed with my own data to help me better understand peoples needs. I put together 132 questions about home life and sent it out through social media and via an email campaign. All sorts of people responded, including university students, twenty-somethings, single parents, stay-at-home parents, working parents, high achievers in business and people who were unemployed. Before completing the Happy Poll, prospective participants were asked to complete the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire developed by scientists at Oxford University to help assess their current state of happiness. My dream is to collate all of this information and one day create the ultimate Happy Home. I am already calling it the Happy Home Project.

In the Happy Poll, when I asked people, What is happiness to you?, there was a variety of answers that came up again and again: feeling content, love, not being stressed, not being restricted by finances when making life choices, being debt-free, living a balanced lifestyle, spending time with loved ones, family and friends, laughter, enjoying good health, having a meaningful life, feeling fulfilled, peace, having free time, sunshine, a glass of wine and even just coffee.

Defining happiness is like trying to define what is beautiful and what is ugly. The topic is subjective and multilayered. What may appear unattractive to the eye can still bring overwhelming happiness. For example, I bought my husband a golden rabbit ornament to celebrate Easter in the first apartment we shared together in London. Every time my friends come to visit they always remark how ugly it is. The thing is, it gives my husband and me great pleasure and, yes, it does make us happy every time we see it!

As British design and life commentator Stephen Bayley says, what is one persons happiness can be another persons misery. He once told me in an interview, cheerful music makes me suicidal. I cant stand cheerful tunes but I guess some find enjoyment in them.

The pursuit of happiness

Through my research I have found there are a lot of people who are uneasy with the word happiness and Im not talking about pessimists or people who have lived in great hardship. When discussing the concept for my book, people were so uncomfortable they would wriggle in their chair and became visibly unhappy. At one dinner party, the debate was so heated that one diner blurted out, There is no such thing as happiness and the idea of pursuing it will only make us miserable!

My dining companion could be partly right, because much research suggests that the act of seeking out happiness can actually make us unhappy. It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness, said Viktor Frankl, twentieth-century Viennese psychiatrist and neurologist. But maybe this is because our approach has been wrong and we are looking for happiness in the wrong places.

A big problem in our modern western world is that we tend to measure our happiness by the work we do and the material success it brings. However, no matter how wealthy we are, the pursuit of happiness impulse is always there, urging us to find bigger, better and shinier things, wishing we lived in that house or drove that car. Its rare that we make happiness about simply savouring the moment, making the most of what we have, or putting energy and love into the space we live in.

Are we fruitlessly striving for the promised land of lasting happiness? One of the worlds leading researchers into the subject of happiness, Dan Gilbert of Harvard University, has found we are terrible at predicting what will lead to happiness. You would assume that winning the lottery would make our happiness levels skyrocket, while a spinal cord injury would make them plummet. But this is not always the case.

Since 1972, only about a third of Americans have described themselves as very happy. And, since 2004, the number of Americans who identify themselves as optimists has plummeted from 79 to 50 per cent. In the Happy Poll, 12 per cent of people said they felt they were pessimists and 33 per cent said they are not as happy as they expected to be at this stage of their life.

Fifty per cent of our happiness is genetic and unchangeable, says Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, following an extensive study on twins. Only 10 per cent of happiness depends on life circumstances such as levels of income and health. The remaining 40 per cent is what we can change. This 40 per cent is what I want to explore and discuss in this book. I want to demonstrate the effects of using good design in our homes and communities, and show how it can help us live a happier life.