Transcript - Donald M. Rattner

[00:00:00] Joshua: [00:00:00] Retail Revolution is a special, limited podcast created specifically for retailing and service design. A unique course that is part of the Fashion Management graduate program at Parsons School of Design in New York City. Each episode features in depth conversations with guests, experts in omni-channel retailing, 2ith myriad perspectives, technology, consumer engagement, data analytics, merchandising, and more. We pay special attention to the short and long term challenges and implications of COVID-19 and potential opportunities to rethink retail's future. Retail Revolution is produced by Joshua Williams and hosted by Christopher Lacy, both our Assistant Professors in the School of Fashion at Parsons.

Christopher: [00:00:47] Hello and welcome to another episode of Retail Revolution podcast where we discuss all things pertaining to retailing and service design. I'm your host Christopher Lacey, and today I am so excited to have with [00:01:00] us an award winning architect whose professional and academic activities have been featured on CNN.

He's been in publications such as the New York times work design magazine, better humans. Rob report. Town and country and many more. He just released his third book in 2019 titled my creative space. How to design your home to stimulate ideas and spark innovation. I am very pleased to bring to the show Donald M Rattner.

Thank you for joining us today. Donald. 

Donald: [00:01:32] Hey, thank you Christopher, for having me. Happy to be here. 

Christopher: [00:01:36] Thank you. I have to say I, I've been looking forward to this conversation since Josh was said that he was like, you, you, we have to talk to Donald because he just understands space and design and he's really cool.

And I was like, Oh my gosh, I can't wait for this conversation to happen. So Donald, I'm going to kick it off to you and ask you to tell us a bit about you and your career and how you got to this [00:02:00] point. 

Donald: [00:02:01] Sure.  Well first of all, it sounds like the pressure's on me now.  So,  let's see. I've been in architecture for a, what I think is a very long time.  I'd say the first , now 25 years or so , my practice focused primarily on high end custom residential design, and also a little kind of side specialty and what I call boutique resort developments. So these were typically , historically and environmentally sensitive properties that , a development team that I worked with would , go in and divide into maybe four or 500 home sites.

Generally these homes would be second homes, although some people use them as primary residences. And then other parts of the property would be developed for activities, leisure activities, sports  , golf, tennis, fishing, swimming, nature walks, and so on and so forth. So those are wonderful project as well, but they didn't a certain point along the [00:03:00] way, I became very interested. In the subject of creativity, which obviously is a very broad subject. Um, but you know, kind of going down that rabbit hole and really starting to ask the question, you know, what that is creativity and certainly how does it pertain to my field, architectural design and, and other creative fields as well.

I started to kind of come across a lot of research, a lot of writings, a lot of posts and articles and so forth that started to connect our physical surroundings with creative performance. That is to say that certain aspects of our environment could actually improve or in some cases, reduce our ability to solve problems.

And it just became more and more fascinated by this area. And in fact, have spent the last several years really focusing on it, doing writing, doing some teaching and talking and, and things like this to kind of bring this subject into the foreground. 

Christopher: [00:03:57] I love hearing that this evolution of who [00:04:00] you are, I have become throughout your process, right?  And it's led you to write this third book, my creative space, how to design your home to stimulate ideas and spark innovation. But that book has an interesting tagline, which is 48 science-based techniques. So what kinds of science did you draw from to arrive at these techniques? 

Donald: [00:04:24] Right? So yes, that is a, that's a key part of the title there. Um and I always try to make sure folks are aware of that, cause sometimes it kind of gets lost in that rattled long title, but that's a critical part of, you know, what I'm working on and what the book's about and what I'm interested in. So basically there are. I would say three branches of science, actually, that I'm kind of involved with these sort of umbrella term., the broad field is called environmental psychology. So, environmental psychology is pretty much what it sounds like. It's the study of how the built or natural environments influence how we as [00:05:00] people think, feel and act.  Call it the science of person to place interaction and , it sort of has an interesting history in that it's a relatively young field as these things go.  It really only came about in the late 1960s, 1970 as kind of a standalone discipline, which is only surprising in so far as. We humans are extraordinarily attuned to our environment. We're extraordinarily sensitive to what is going on outside ourselves. And one of the reasons that , that is, is that much of our call it mental profile., much of our DNA, much of our behavior is rooted in our evolutionary past, right? So this brings in the second field that I'm , involved with it, which is evolutionary psychology. So evolutionary psychology tries to understand. What is it about our evolution as a species that informs and continues to direct how we think, feel, and act today?  So we're talking about going back hundreds of [00:06:00] thousands of years, millions even, and try and understand how our formation. You know, back in the day when there was nothing except us in the environment, there was no intermediary elements, right? We didn't have houses and walls and insulation and roofs and air conditioning and supermarkets to get our food.  So it was just us in the environment. And of course, everything was about how to survive in this very direct relationship. So all sorts of behavioral patterns become immeshed in our psyche by virtue of natural selection, evolution, right? The ones, the creatures that are the early homosapiens who figured that out, who could survive their genes, survive to the next generation and the next generation. Those who didn't did things in the environment that didn't allow for survival died off. So today what we're carrying around in our mental profile are the genes of the sort of winners of their survival sweepstakes. And this is one of the sort of most fascinating parts of discoveries, I would say in my research, how much of ourselves are rooted in our past.

And then the [00:07:00] third kind of branch I deal with is: I call it design psychology. It's probably the least well known of them. But this is where basically we're taking findings in environmental psychology, in evolutionary psychology and applying them to real world problems of design. Because the idea is if you know what sort of environmental triggers cause a certain behavior to happen or a way of thinking or feeling or acting in a human, you can kind of reverse engineer your space, your environment, to deliberately produce those kinds of responses. So. Putting all of those three together, that's plenty of material that I can use to kind of build up a sort of manual, which is what I tried to do with the book of how people can design their home environments, but this can be applied to almost any type of environment to improve creative performance. 

Christopher: [00:07:46] I love that you mentioned we hold onto these, these DNA parts from the past because you know, one of the books I read, I go back to it and I'll pick up a chapter [00:08:00] is  Uval Noah Harare's a book "Sapiens." And , in that book, there's the chapter on our agricultural development and how that's the time that sapiens, we begin to build homes, right? And we decided we were going to stay in one place and no longer be hunters and gatherers.  And so, it created a totally different psychology, right? Cause now it's, this is my home, this is my space, this is my territory. And then we start to go out from there. Until I read that book, I kind of never thought about our previous psychology and how that impacts how we really do engage with a space today. And what is space means to us today. 

Donald: [00:08:40] And remember, you know, evolution moves at a snail's pace. So in a sense , we are living space, age, lives with stone age brains because there simply hasn't been enough time for our brains to catch up to the fact that, you know, once upon a time, we spend a hundred percent of our time in a natural environment, basically outdoors. [00:09:00] Today, it's almost the 180 degree reverse. We now in industrialized countries certainly spend 90% of our time indoors. So, here we are with a completely different, you know, behavioral pattern, and yet our brains still think we're out of doors. And as a result, we get a lot of these very kind of the behavioral anomalies, I call them. These kinds of puzzling responses to our environment that on a strictly rational basis, make no sense.  But, because again, time hasn't moved on enough, we get these kind of funny discrepancies between where we are and how we behave and how we think rationally we should behave. 

Christopher: [00:09:33] So how would understanding the connection between the physical space and then your creative in-home environments, how does that apply to a retail business? Because to your point, we spend a lot of time inside. So brick and mortar has always kind of been this idea of like, how do we make the space different and more experiential. 

Donald: [00:09:52] First thing I think is kind of background is sort of foundation here. Let me , just kind of briefly describe what I call the kind [00:10:00] of two principle cognitive styles, right? Meaning modes of mental processing. And we refer to them all the time by the terms left brain and right brain thinking, right? A common term.  I kind of prefer the  nomenclature analytic for left and creative for right. So basically , our kind of mental processing bounces back and forth between the two. And one or the other tends to come to the foreground depending on what we're doing, what's going on, what we're reacting to.

So by analytic thinking, left brain thinking, we are talking about, you know, rational reason based thinking. We talking about the kind of thinking where you tend to be in a kind of linear pattern. So you figure out one thing that allows you to figure out the next thing. And the next thing. It's the kind of mindset where we're generally very focused on something very concentrated and on a kind of narrow field of vision. We're often thinking in very concrete and detailed dimensions.  Very often we're dealing with problems that have one right answer. So if I asked you, you know, what's two plus two equal and whole intergers? Obviously you're going [00:11:00] to say four because you're drawing on objective knowledge. So, you're going outside yourself to find answers to problems.

It's also the kind of thinking where generally we're dealing with the world more or less as it is and how to use it to our advantage. So that's our kind of, you know, list of attributes, of analytical thinking, our left brain thinking. Now on the right, the right brain thinking, the so-called creative thinking is almost a mirror opposite of that, right? So, instead of rational reason based thinking, we're using intuition, imagination, and judgment. Instead of linear thinking, we tend to kind of bounce all over the place, right? It kind of in a zigzag, circuitous route to arrive at our, our solutions instead of focus and detail perspective, we tend to take a kind of abstract, nonspecific big picture broad-brush view of the world. We're often dealing when we're trying to solve creative problems with problems that have more than one right answer. And there's no, in fact, maybe no right answer, but maybe multiple possible answers.  And we tend to kind of approach the world as it could be, right? Cause that [00:12:00] is the nature of creativity , which is not to take things simply as they are, but how they might be in the future. So I think from a retail perspective, the ultimate goal of a store design, would be to try to induce a creative mindset in , in the minds eye of the customer. And why is that? Because creativity is all about open-mindedness, right?

Christopher: [00:12:21] Right. 

Donald: [00:12:21] Meaning openness to new ideas, new ways of doing things, and new ways of solving problems. So, to kind of put that in a kind of customer perspective, if somebody comes in and says, you know, I need a navy blue tie with white polka dots, I have to have that, and only that, because it goes with the suit I have, they're in a sense being very closed minded, right? They have a very specific, very narrowly focused goal, and either you got that tie or you don't, and you might lose the sale if you don't, and he walks out. Whereas, if you can somehow create an atmosphere where that customer is induced to open up possibilities in the way he's looking at things. And you would be able to show him, say a yellow [00:13:00] tie with blue polka dots and explain why it would go well with this particular suit. If he's in that kind of open state of mind, you're much more likely to close that sale than if he's so rigid in his thinking that it's gotta be this or not that one right answer. So, this kind of ties into creative performance because almost all of the call the design triggers, environmental cues that induce greater creative thinking also open up the mind to new possibilities. And they also, and this is kind of critical and kind of like present context of Covid-19, they also induce a feeling of safety and comfort. Right? Because we're only, we only feel, uh, capable of being creative when we feel like we can let our guard down to some degree when we feel comfortable in our environment. Because creativity also entails taking risks, right? When you kind of, if you're in a, say a business, a organization, a company, you throw out kind of this radically creative idea and how to do things, you're taking a bit of a risk because, you know, a lot of tendency of people to [00:14:00] just kind of shoot it down and say, no, no, we can't do it. We've always done it this way. So, you're kind of holding yourself out there for criticism, or if you're an artist and you kind of putting your work out there in the world, you're holding yourself up for failure. So, you have to have a certain amount of, as I say, a confidence and feeling like you can let your guard down, have the space to try these new ways of doing things.

So, all of these conditions, all of these triggers that I have found. Well boost creative performance, I think could very well be applied to retail environments to kind of open up people's minds as they come in and see new ways of combining the merchandise, utilizing the merchandise and how it could fit into their lives.

Christopher: [00:14:34] I think this is really important because as we look at in a retail space, especially like if we go a multi-vendor retail space, it's art. You know, it's another type of design, right? So it's, it's clothing, design, accessories, design. And so it's someone's creativity that's put into this place, and then the customer goes in to engage with someone else's creativity. And the way you just spoke about it is also [00:15:00] that the space in and of itself should be a character within this story of creativity that's going on over the years, there's been many, many different architects have worked with with luxury retail brands to create certain spaces. What kind of concrete example could you give on how your research, it can be applied to a physical store design for that creativity? Is it about lines? Is it about color? Is it about, how does that work? 

Donald: [00:15:29] In my book , I, I've got actually, as you mentioned, 48 different techniques. So we're talking about a lot of different ways you can certainly manipulate space and also to create spaces that get people to do certain things that have been found to be linked to higher creativity.  But it really is, it runs the gamut.  Some of which, you know, you may intuitively sort of sense, Oh yeah, I could kind of see that. And some of which seem to come out of left field and you would never not have imagined it. 

So for example, I'll just kind of throw them out in no particular order, um, shapes. [00:16:00] Shapes have a big impact on our mental processing. Generally speaking, when people are exposed to shapes that are very rectilinear, are very dominated by straight lines, crisp edges, pointy corners, they tend to shift into an analytical mindset. Whereas, if they are exposed to or in contact with shapes that are more rounded, soft curves, circular, uh, they tend to move over into a creative mindset. So once you kind of know that, you would say, Hm, okay, can I, how do I inject a certain curve, a linear character to my space? I could literally shape the space itself with curve partitions. I could find fixtures that have rounded contours, maybe are circular and so forth. You can do it on a two dimensional level in terms of artwork or patterns on the wall. ,I mean, it's just endless where you could apply this preference for certain shapes to induce that creative mindset. So there's one example color, of course, I'm sure people are certainly aware of. This color [00:17:00] plays a big impact on our kind of psychological state. So, the color blue, for example, has been linked to heightened creativity.

And you know, with all of these, by the way, I should mention, you know, there are explanations for why w e react in the way we do. They of course have to be fear radical. We can't prove why people react to round shapes versus straight or color blue versus other way they do. But you can, you know, like almost like a, like an attorney arguing a case before a judge or a jury, you hold together, your evidence. You amass an argument or you configure an argument and you put it out there in the marketplace of ideas and some of them will fly and some of them won't, you know?  But, you know, there some very interesting theories as to why we react to curved , contours versus straight or blue versus say, red.

So again, this is a good example of where we have to go way back in time, a couple of hundred thousand years, maybe even millions of years. So if you think of nature, of course, what are the shapes that are dominant in nature? Well, generally speaking, there are very few straight lines in nature, but [00:18:00] where they do occur, think a sort of jagged rock outlines or certainly pointy,  surfaces such as the end of some ferocious animals, teeth. These shapes tend to hurt. So, over time we, uh, sort of through natural selection to evolution became aware that, you know, back off when you see straight edges or sharp edges because they hurt, they threaten our survival. Whereas rounded things we could, you know, handle all day long and never feel uncomfortable or certainly never., almost never, experience bodily harm. So there's a way that these pattern has been genetically encoded into our brains to the point where even today, look, you know, here's, here's where you get the disconnect between the rational cells and the sort of non-rational selves. No one's ever going to hurt themselves sitting down on a sofa that's very rectilinear, you know, a classic kind of Knoll sofa, right?

Christopher: [00:18:51] Right. 

Donald: [00:18:51] But subliminally, we're slightly discomforted by that shape. Whereas if we sat down on a big, you know, a lip sofa, one of these very Ron [00:19:00] Erad sofas, which are very curvilinear, we're automatically, subconsciously feeling much more comfortable with ourselves. 

So, blue of course, has lots of positive connotations. Blue skies, blue waters. There is a positive element to it, and there's also an emotional aspect to it. They have found that the color blue will lower heart rate, lower stress, whereas say, seeing the color red, raises heart rate, raises stress levels, but in some cases, that could be a good thing. Let's say, in fact, uh, because one of the effects of red is also to increase appetite. So, if you're designing a restaurant or you have a food service within your retail environment, you might want to look at red as your kind of basis of your pallet, because that's going to boost people's appetite coming into the, um, into the space.

 Another huge area here that's really, uh, in a lot of ways of kind of treasure trove of design triggers is what's called biophilic design. So biophilia, the word means love of nature, bio, nature, philia love. [00:20:00] It's based on something called the biophilia hypothesis, which again, ties back into evolutionary psychology, which is the idea that because basically we were genetically formed in a period where it was us in the natural environment only we have, we retain that natural affinity with the organic world, and the more we can reintegrate nature into built space, and that can be done all sorts of ways from literally the color green plant life, botanic motifs on artwork or wall coverings and so forth. Natural materials, even smells and sounds. The more restorative that effect is on us, the more mentally and physically. Well, we are more creative we are, and all of these kinds of positive results occur. So I think biophilic design could be a great tool for retailers to look at, especially in the coming period where I think people obviously are coming out of a very stressful period. We need to create that sense of comfort. We need to create that sense of safety and restoring that connection [00:21:00] between inside and outside is one of the most effective ways you can accomplish all of that.

Christopher: [00:21:04] I enjoy that. You talk about biophilic design. Did I say that right? 

Donald: [00:21:09] You said it perfectly right. 

Christopher: [00:21:10] Wow. All right. So, because you know, we had spoken with, her name is Laura Maguire. She's president of ManMade music. And when we were talking about just space and sound and the idea of sonic branding and what should retailers be looking at post Covid-19, or as we start to come out on the other side of the pandemic, is that for us, evolutionary sound lets us know we're in a healthy space. So if a place is too quiet, it almost is, is it healthy or you know, is it dead space because of this silence? And that's just sound. So when, when you talk about what we see and how we experience space from a visual perspective, and we go into this, you know, other side of [00:22:00] Covid-19, knowing that retailers can't just go out and start, you know, re redesigning their stores, but are there things that they could probably do based on your research immediately to make the space, it feels safe, feel healthy from a design perspective? 

Donald: [00:22:19] Yeah, I mean, certainly in terms of talking about other senses, it's, it's not just sight. It's actually all five senses. Any kind of sensory stimulus coming into conscious through one of the five senses, sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, can induce these kinds of behaviors that we're talking about can move you into an analytic or a creative mindset. So it really spans, you know, spans the globe. An d what they've, what they've also found is, you know, yes, there is a compounding effect. The more you know, design triggers, the more inventive environmental cues that you can implement in your space that have been found to connect the positive effect, as scientists call, we would call mood arousal, a good mood, um, the better. But. In a lot [00:23:00] of cases, one little change alone can make a huge difference.

One of the most famous experiments in the field of environmental psychology took place, in fact, in a hospital,  where they studied two groups of patients. They basically were all in the same rooms, stayed in identical rooms. So their physical environment is the same. The only thing that was different is what they look...What they saw when they looked sitting in their bed through the window just because of where they were along a corridor. Roughly half the subjects looked out and they were on the second and third floors. They were looking right into the canopies of trees. And the other half, the farther down the corridor had a straight shot across the courtyard to a blank brick wall on the other side of the courtyard.  I guess the trees had only been planted to one end, and what they found is those patients who saw the tops of trees or the leaves of trees had shorter hospital stays, fewer complications in the course of their stay and required less medication than those in the rooms down the corridor. So, we are talking about one single factor in the environment, literally altering human physiology at its core. You know, the power of the environment influence how we think, feel, and [00:24:00] act cannot get any more profound than that. So no, if you're not, you know, up for a full-tscale renovation to start from scratch, that's fine. But there are lots of things you can do and one of them is very simple. Bring in some plants, bring in some plans, put them on the checkout desk or in strategic places around the shop, just the sight--and this has been found not only in that hospital experiment, lots of other studies as well. Workplace study found that just bringing in some plants, boosted idea formation, idea generation, that kind of creative core, 15 to 40%. So, these are not very expensive changes. I'm not very expensive or difficult things to integrate into an existing space, but they can make all the difference in the world.

You talked about sound. Smells also since you know, you could just get sticks and then oils. There are diffuser machines and expensive diffusion machines o emit certain positive scents  into the atmosphere. And it can be very subliminal, right? In fact, in some ways you don't even want people to notice these things. And that's part of the fascinating part of all of these studies, is almost [00:25:00] none of them were people told a, okay, well, here's what we're looking for. Here's what we're studying and which we want to see how you react to this color, that color. They never tell people what they're actually up to. It's kind of a funny thing. It's always a ruse where they then have people do things that bring them into contact with these triggers and then see subliminally how do people react. So, you don't want to make it overwhelming sense, but just enough to trigger their kind of behavioral response, you know, inexpensive artwork with...you put up landscapes or you put up old travel posters even.  That's a great example. I often use that and I show some of my book, but I also use that in the talk. Put up these old vintage travel posters where you might see, you know, grease up at the top and then a lovely water color of a Greek beach, uh, somewhere in the, in the Greek Isles. Just that impression of nature, even though it's not real,  still acts because our brains will respond to metaphorical and sort of representational examples of these design triggers.

So lots of things you can do, uh, certainly right off the [00:26:00] bat. And then, as time goes on, of course you could integrate more and more. And you mentioned sound, of course music is another big one. There are certain guidelines you generally want to follow in terms of your music selection. You want it to be instrumental, so it's mostly in the background, right? So it's...people aren't concentrating on lyrics. Obviously the tempo and the mood have to be kind of consistent with your brand or your merchandise and so forth. And it's generally gotta be music that people will like, right? You want to cause positive affect. So probably, you know, no Motley Crue or something like that, but all of these things can be done relatively simply and easily, um, to kind of start you off. 

Christopher: [00:26:41] So do you think technology has been integrated into design spaces? Quite a bit. And, and also just in our lives, and I bring it up because now, you know, as we go through this particular pandemic, there will be, you know, [00:27:00] immersive 3D design that's going to come out and designing a space in augmented reality. Do the same rules apply? 

Donald: [00:27:10] I think on the whole, yes, they will, because again, our brains are just wired to respond in a very kind of consistent pattern to certain inputs. And as I mentioned, in the case of the artwork, it doesn't have to be quote unquote real and three dimensional. That all being said, um, you know, I think there are limits, uh, and I'm, uh, I'm a great fan of technology personally, professionally. And I talk about certain techniques in the book that can utilize,  simple technology, certainly within the home environments and possibly at, and certainly in retail as well.  But there are limits, because at a certain point, you know, we need material contact with things. We need a real sensory stimuli to maintain our mental and physical wellbeing.

And this kind of could potentially get into kind of retail design as well to minimalist to space. You know, the, the sort of empty white box [00:28:00] with like two shirts on the table. Um, that kind of approach for me at least might be missing the mark. Because again, think back to the, you know, roaming the African Savannah 200,000 years ago, nature is quite lush in terms of its, its material stimuli, the leaves and the breast and the animals and the sky and the changing clouds, things are moving. It's very dynamic. And what they found is when--and people are asked to rank their preference in sort of natural landscapes--at the bottom of the list tend to be places like the Sahara desert or the Arctic poles, cause they're very sort of mono-themed environments, right? There's nothing but sand. There's nothing but snow. There's just, it's just very monolithic in a way. Not as, I guess is the better word. And then we react negatively to those environments because again, we need to be fed. It's almost like eating food. We need nourishment in our brain and our stimuli. So I think technology can give us up to a point,  those inputs to keep us sort of fit,  in a sort of mental and [00:29:00] cerebral way, but only up to a point. We need to supplement that at a minimum with real world three-dimensional experience.

Christopher: [00:29:07] I appreciate you saying that so much because I, you know, there's always this, there's this fear that the physical space, the physical space will, no one will want to be in the physical space.  I just don't ever think that's the case. I actually even think once we start to reopen and there, there's the desire to be in a physical space, there will be fear, I think, you know, and anxiety that will happen as we navigate back out. But I do think that there's this thing where people are like, I don't want to have to engage through an eCommerce platform all the time, or, or engage through digital means. Like I want to touch fabric, I want to feel  things. I want to experience things in a real way.

Donald: [00:29:46] Right. 

Christopher: [00:29:46] And I want to ask you, because saying that and experiencing something in a real way, and you are an expert in this field. When you walk into a brick and mortar store, are there just moments where you're [00:30:00] like, I cannot go into the store because the design is just, it hurts,  it's not emotionally right for me. Have you seen those mistakes? 

Probably 

Donald: [00:30:10] too often, um, for my own good. Um, I guess I, you know, in some ways, obviously just given her background, uh, probably too sensitive to things sometimes. Um, because just my eye goes everywhere and it kind of takes it all in. But, um, I'm sure as you know, it happens to, to others as well.

 Yeah, there are certainly things. And probably number one on that list would be the lighting. You know, I think light is, you know,  it can make or break an experience in any kind of, certainly, interior space, assuming of course we're dealing with electric illumination. Um, and by the way, again, you know, natural light, bringing natural light, if possible, into a store space, is a huge benefit in terms of a cognitive benefits.

But the electric lighting, of course, we need it to function, is so key.  But, it's really [00:31:00] tricky, because there's so many different factors in play. You're trying to juggle it once. It's almost impossible, even today with all our technology to perfectly emulate natural light, which ultimately in a sense, wants to be the goal of your lighting scheme because so much of our bodily rhythms are tied into this. As we know, the circadian cycle of the rising sun, it starts off warm and then it gets cool, and then it reaches its peak in the middle of the day, and then it starts getting cool again. Excuse me. Then it starts getting warmer and then sunset, of course, is in the fiery red and all of these hormonal activities going on inside our bodies telling us when to go to sleep, when to do this and that are tied to that light pattern. So, we are super sensitive to light. And of course one of the big problems with technology is the blue light factor where all our phones and computer screens are emitting this consistently blue light at us throughout the course of the day. And that whacks out our circadian rhythms as a result, because we're expecting, you know, sunset to be a little warmer. But here we are still looking at blue lights, [00:32:00] so half our brain thinks we should still be up and about. And the other half. I try to go to sleep. It's just a big mess, right back to, uh, interior lighting. Um, yeah, that's really critical. And it's hard to be absolutely categorical because you have different types of merchandising and different products and different environments. At a supermarket you need very bright lights to see labels and another stores, you want something dimmer. But I think if. You know, I ask store owners and so forth, designers to look at one thing first. It's gotta be the lighting, because if it's off, it really just kills the experience for the individual , both, you know, literally and subliminally. 

Christopher: [00:32:36] Wow. Something as simple as lighting. Who knew 

Donald: [00:32:39] Except that it's really tough to manipulate. Now, these days we are in a better place. Thanks to LED lighting, specifically color changing bulbs, and this is something people can do in their own homes, can do in retail environments, in a home environment, there are consumer products as we know, Phillips Hue, and lots of other brands [00:33:00] where you can change the color of the bowl from warm to cool and back again using apps. You can do presets, so you can say in the morning, I want it first warm than I wanted to go to. Cool. By noon. And then I, you know, you can almost mimic the pattern throughout the day and you can set it and forget it and it just kind of runs on its own, certainly in different rooms. Say in a bedroom. You do, you want the warmer light to kind of get you. To sleep. Whereas in the living space or kitchen, you might want cooler. And in, you know, commercial environments, they do have systems. Now, there are manufacturers that are putting out these kinds of circadian based lighting systems, uh, that can be installed.

Um, you know, as I say there, it's a work in progress. They're not quite there yet, but it's, it's an evolving technology and I think we'll see more and more of it as time goes on. 

Christopher: [00:33:46] Okay. So I have one final question for you, because retail is always wanting to provide, you know, this immersive sensory experience. Is there a retail space that does this for you, and why does it, is there a place that you [00:34:00] like look forward to going to, and you're like, they just got this right? 

Donald: [00:34:03] Hmm. Well, you know, it's interesting because I was, no, I was just thinking in advance of our talk about, you know, different retail experiences, but, Christopher, we could make a little bit of history in today's podcast if you want to.

Christopher: [00:34:18] Let's do it.

Donald: [00:34:19] Let's do it. Okay, so I am going to coin a term here that as far as Google tells me is never been used. It shows up in like one or two places in a very weird way that I can't even figure it out. So let's just say it's a brand new word. It's going to be a mashup of two words, retail and residential. So I'm going to call it retidential design.

Christopher: [00:34:43] All right, retidential design.

Donald: [00:34:44] Retidential  design. Now, I know it sounds like an awful word, but it actually has some precedent because in workplace design, there is a movement called resi-mmercial design. Almost as bad a mashup, which is obviously a combination of residential [00:35:00] and commercial. Uh, so what's happening in workplace design is that more and more, especially, uh, under the, uh, sort of influence of gen Xers, millennials who want to see workplace environments with a greater feeling of home to them. So you're seeing things in the workplace that you would never see 20 years ago. Fireplaces, sofas, you know, easy chairs, nap rooms, music rooms, all of these spaces that kind of tie back into things we do in a home environment, or used to do only in a home environment. And I think, uh, maybe one of the post-Covid  movements that will arise in part because of this podcast is retidential design, where we see more aspects of home coming into the retail space as a way to create that sense of safety and of comfort and of wellbeing that we associate with home.

And of course, you know, there have been cases. Ralph Lauren is the one that comes to my mind where, you know, especially the Madison Avenue store and other stores have that [00:36:00] feeling of being, of course, the Madison Avenue store was literally a mansion once upon a time being in a home environment, obviously a very luxurious one commensurate with the product and other stores. You know, certainly I've seen, you know, chairs or lounge chairs when you first come in. So whoever's not shopping, the partner can go shop and that person could sit in the chair. So there are certain aspects of residential design and I think we could see more and more of it because you know. Uh, here's, here's the kind of flip side of Covid and experience...in a way, it's a good thing because it's renewed our appreciation of home as a safe Harbor, but it also points out its limitations, which is we can't stay home all day long, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, three days a year. We go a little crazy. Humans are genetically engineered to be social animals, we need company of others.  And so I think we realized there's gotta be a balance between the importance of home as a comforting environment and our need to go out and be amongst others. And one of the ways to do that is to bring a little bit of the home out into other spaces, such as the retail environment. 

[00:37:00] Christopher: [00:37:00] There you all have it. You heard it here. Restdential design. 

Donald: [00:37:05] Got it. 

Christopher: [00:37:06] I am super excited about this new term. I agree with you. I think that is probably a way that that will end up going and, and, and I'm glad we had that brief moment to discuss it. 

So Donald, how do people stay up on what you're doing? Keep abreast of your thoughts and the science behind creative spaces.

Donald: [00:37:28] Sure. So you can visit my website, which is Donald Ratner with two T's, very important.com. And I got all sorts of resources there. Um, besides my own book, other books, events, seminars, classes and so forth. Most of them on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook as well. 

Christopher: [00:37:47] Fantastic, I think I might join one of those courses, or one of those classes cause I...

Come on.

...want to know more about this?

Donald: [00:37:53] Come on over. 

Christopher: [00:37:55] Donald, thank you so much for your time. I enjoyed this conversation so much. I hope you [00:38:00] have a great remainder of the day. You too, and thanks for having me, Christopher. Thank you.

Joshua: [00:38:08] Thank you for listening to this episode of Retail Revolution. A very special thank you to everyone who has helped make this podcast possible, our guests, our students and fellow faculty at Parsons School of Design, especially in such an extraordinary and unprecedented time. Our theme music was composed by Spencer Powell.  

Be well, and stay tuned for our next episode.

www.RetailRevolutionPodcast.com