Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash

Science has unlocked a wealth of research that confirms that place setting plays a huge role in our ability to be creative. For a number of years researchers, environmental psychologists, architects and designers have learned a ton about how the elements of space influence creative thinking. The research, that has mainly occurred over the last few decades, has provided us with a wealth of data and thus a storehouse of techniques that we can use for boosting creativity through the manipulation of our physical environment.

The Home Studio Revolution

Photo by Omar Prestwich on Unsplash

Through the 2000s the number of home studios exploded because equipment requirements shrank, real estate costs skyrocketed and so most people needed to leverage their home for work. At the same time our living spaces have shrunk as urban centres have become denser meaning most of us have less space to dedicate solely to work or being creative. On top of this, our circumstances as of late, have ushered in a momentous surge in work from home practices in every sector. All of this means that we have to find effective and efficient ways to use whatever space we are afforded to accomplish our work and biggest creative goals. Luckily, as I mentioned earlier, science and research have unlocked very specific ways we can optimize any space or environment to achieve more creativity and more productivity whether you are working from the kitchen table or the sofa.

A Little Background on my Experience with Space

Since the mid 90s I’ve been building studios and creative space for both my own personal needs and the needs of growing businesses. I’ve built everything from basement rooms with egg cartons on the walls to award winning multi-room facilities designed by the world's top studio architects. The Signal hub was the culmination of this experience and latest knowledge to create an energetic multi-room space that would feed creativity and energy by bringing people together to work in an atmosphere of community. We’ve learned a lot from this that will help us refine our spaces even more to facilitate an unrivaled experience for creative pros. What we also learned is that studios haven’t changed all that much since they were originally conceived. It’s time we started to really think at what that change could look like!

Setting up for Creativity

There has been some literature written on the subject of optimizing space for creativity but the music and sound space and the media creation space have been somewhat neglected as a focus. Large scale enterprises like Herman Miller have learned to adapt the science to enterprise office space and these trends and tactics permeate large scale businesses. Media pros have been left out of the mix when it comes to specific products and systems and the implementation of the science. Over the years our spaces have really centred around the equipment that we need at our fingertips in order to complete a creative task. This is completely understandable although in the process we may be undermining our ability to be as creative as possible. When setting up our space we tend to focus on questions like - Where should I put my speakers? Where should I put my microphone? Where do I hang this guitar?

It's time to think of your space like a crucial piece of gear.

Maybe it’s time to ask some new questions like: How do I set up my space so that I’m in a good mental state to be creative? The way I like to think about using space effectively is by trying to use the right space for the right task at the right time. The simplest example of this is to avoid using your studio or creative space to answer emails or work on your taxes. As I pointed out in an earlier piece about designating creative space, we prime ourselves for specific tasks by repeating them in certain spaces. When you walk into your studio space you want your body and mind to think creativity. What you don't want to do is walk into your place of creation and think all those stressful thoughts about your taxes, finances or that confrontational email that you just finished writing. Take these more administrative tasks to a different part of your space!  

These are the ideas and concepts I will continue to explore in future articles with the goal of providing useful and insightful, often overlooked tactics that you can use to better optimize your environment so you can realize your own creative potential way easier!

How are you doing with your workspace? Having success or are you battling issues?

Now head to over to Science Backed Ways to Optimize your Space for Creativity

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