Why round rooms can make us happier and more creative than rectangular ones

Does the idea of a round room feel absurd to you? How would the furniture fit? How would you even build it?

Sculptor Cath Wild, who is building a dome-shaped house in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, says the round rooms make her feel peaceful and calm.

"There's something about the space. It's a little womb-like but not constricting or claustrophobic.

"I think it's also a kickback to back in the day, when we all lived in round houses."

And it seems Cath's experience may not be an isolated one.

Thinking outside the square when it comes to the environments we live and work in could not only make us happier, but also boost creativity, according to new research.

Preliminary results from studies exploring the psychological effects of different-shaped rooms on cognitive function and emotion have found round rooms are more likely to have a positive impact on how a person feels and how they perform when undertaking a series of assigned tasks, when compared to carrying out the same tasks in rectangular-shaped rooms.

But what is it about removing those hard edges that may also sharpen our minds?

How our built environment impacts us

Oliver Baumann is an experimental psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist based at Bond University on the Gold Coast and specialises in research into how different indoor and outdoor environments can influence mental function and emotional responses.

After conducting studies that concluded views of greenery have a positive effect on cognition and emotional wellbeing; and lower-density areas reduce stress levels when compared to urban environments, Dr Baumann set out to investigate whether being in round rooms, rather than rectangular ones, would provide similar psychological benefits.

"I thought it would be really interesting to see how that also might impact our cognition and creativity, since we previously found quite substantial effects of window views of nature on performance," Dr Baumann says.

The study used virtual and augmented reality to place participants in almost identical offices — one round, and the other rectangular — and assessed their mood, heart rate and responses to creativity tasks.

"We found that in the round room, they not only reported feeling better, but also had a lower heart rate and produced more creative answers in a standard creativity task," Dr Baumann says.

Our history might explain it

One explanation Dr Baumann has for the positive emotional response round-shaped rooms elicit is that evolution has given humans an innate preference for "places that seem to be beneficial for survival".

In nomadic times, humans commonly lived in round-shaped dwellings such as teepees and igloos; ancient Roman architecture incorporated arcs and arches; and religious and spiritual structures including mosques and churches have traditionally favoured non-rectangular shapes.

While it's not yet completed, Cath has already spent a few nights in her house, which is primarily made of Aircrete — a sustainable and economical building material comprised of foam and concrete — and says she had "the best sleep ever and the energy is amazing".

"I don't know what the studies say but from firsthand experience, and from what other people who've built domes have said to me, as well as just people who walk into the space, the energy is tangibly different.

"I have I've had a bit of trouble sleeping these last few years and the nights that I've slept up there, I slept straight through ... like a baby."

Technology can make it easier to rethink our spaces

Dr Baumann points out that industrialisation and factory production has led to mass-produced building materials that are used in modern construction and believes technological advances will make it easier for architects and designers to round out the edges when it comes to planning for future projects.

"With modern computer technology and 3D printing, there are opportunities to actually make buildings more interesting again because it's a lot easier to calculate the statics of a building using computers compared to 50 years ago, when people had to do it with a calculator.

For Cath, even the task of having to outfit the interior of a round-shaped dwelling has itself meant she's had to harness some creative thinking.

"There are no straight walls, so you have to use your head to even put a shelf in, because if a shelf is 40 centimetres off the floor, it's got a different kind of wall shape [to contend with] than if it's one metre off the floor."

But thinking about buildings creatively came easily to her.

"I'm a sculptor, so I've always been a little outside the box, I think is probably the nicest way to explain it," she says.

"[And] I grew up in a grain silo that was converted into a house, so I guess I kind of grew up in in a round house — or a cylinder house.

"And this is what I could afford."