Designing for Joy: How Objects and Environments Can Shape Human Experience

I keep coming back to the idea that our surroundings affect us more than we realize.

A room can change how long we stay somewhere. A chair can make us sit closer or farther apart. A strange object can make us curious. A small interaction can interrupt a routine. Sometimes something as simple as surprise can completely change the energy of a moment.

This is one of the reasons I became interested in design in the first place.

I studied industrial design, but over time I found myself becoming just as interested in behavior, performance, psychology, space, and the small things people do around objects and around each other. I started paying more attention not only to what something looks like or how well it functions, but to what kind of behavior it makes possible.

A lot of my research has circled around happiness, play, social connection, and the ways our environments influence experience.

One thing I find especially interesting is that joy is rarely one thing. It can come from anticipation, surprise, movement, curiosity, achievement, humor, recognition, or simply sharing a moment with someone else. These are small mechanisms, but they can change how an experience feels.

That has made me think about design less as the creation of objects and more as the creation of situations.

A designer can decide where someone stands, what they notice first, what they have to do, what remains hidden, what is revealed, whether another person becomes part of the experience, and whether there is room for something unexpected to happen.

Those decisions can be very small.

The distance between two chairs can change whether strangers speak to each other. A reflective surface can make someone suddenly aware of their own expression. A physical response from an object can make an interaction feel almost alive. A delay of one or two seconds can create anticipation.

I find these moments fascinating because they happen at the intersection of design and human behavior.

They also remind me of acting and performance. In performance, the same gesture can feel completely different depending on timing, context, expectation, and the reaction of another person. I think objects and environments can work in a similar way.

MÜRROR came out of this way of thinking.

At its simplest, it is a mirror that stays hidden until it recognizes a smile. The mechanism is easy to explain, but what happens around it is less predictable.

Someone tries it. They smile. The reflection suddenly appears. They may laugh, try again, call someone over, or start experimenting with different expressions. Sometimes several people begin watching each other use it.

For me, that behavior around the object has always been as interesting as the object itself.

The mirror creates a very small rule, and people decide what to do with it.

That idea continues to influence the way I work today. Whether I am designing an object, an installation, an event, or a space, I keep asking similar questions:

What will people notice?

What will make them curious?

What will make them move?

What might make them interact with someone else?

What can remain slightly unexpected?

And what kind of memory might they leave with?

I do not think design can manufacture joy. Human experience is far too complicated for that.

But I do think design can create conditions where curiosity, play, connection, and surprise become a little more possible.

That is the kind of design I am interested in making.