Dr Sadhana Jagannath

My PhD aims to examine what a good home means to people and how better homes can be designed to support psychological wellbeing. Feeling happy, safe and secure at home is essential for human well-being. It is strongly dependent on the physical entity of the house and its functionality, and on how well it fits residents’ needs. A good home provides a good fit between these two. This interdisciplinary study brings together insights from environmental psychology and architecture to examine residents, architects and planners’ perceptions of “a good home”.

In my MSc, I developed and tested a model of person-environment fit (Droseltis & Vignoles, 2010) based on personality characteristics. I found that a resident’s ability to make changes to homes based on individual needs and perceptions of the space influenced satisfaction and happiness at home. These findings suggest that enabling and encouraging residents to modify or personalise their homes to fit their preferences and needs may help create better housing for a larger number of people with different needs. This PhD will build upon the MSc and examine ways to develop designs of homes that support a resident’s psychological well-being, such as provisions for changes. 

The PhD is developed to address the implications of urbanisation on housing and works towards creating sustainable living environments that supports long term health and wellbeing. My research aligns with the two main strategic research themes of the university namely ‘Urban living’ and ‘Sustainability’. The research contributes towards the Sustainable Development Goal of developing ‘Sustainable cities and communities’ (goal 11) that would facilitate ‘Good health and well-being’ (goal 3). My research is a part of the Environmental Psychology Research Group - EPRG’s concept of ‘place and space’, exploring meaningful spaces for people and people-space relationships.