Examining the psychological affects of the water element used in architectural space on the user

Throughout history, the element of water has carried meaningful value to an important degree in many different cultures. Whilst time has changed many inventions, it has not changed the cultural connection that people have with water. At the beginning of the modern age, the rapid consumption of the Earth's natural resources and its pollution has quite contrarily strengthened people's relationship with water. This relationship, which has strong connections in its cultural foundation, has also continued to be important when it has become the water element as part of, and determinent of, architectural design. In our present day, water is greatly important for designers. As in the past, it continues to be included in design with its aesthetic quality, and its psychological and semantic value, in public and private landscape design, in squares, inside buildings and surrounding them. People spend their whole lives within a physical environment and they are constantly affected by the architectural elements within this environment. During this time, every design that a person sees causes psychological reactions. These reactions are generally caused by the user-architectural design relationship. With the use of the water element in architectural design, it's very important in terms of the user's psychology for it to be a stimulus. In this thesis, the aim is to show the different psychological affects on the user depending on the properties of the use of water as a design element, and what kinds of affects can be brought about by using these properties of the design feature. xiii The first section will introduce the aim, content and method of this work; the second, third and fourth sections present foundational theories and arguments concerning the topic with the use of literature reviews. In these sections, in order; space, the interaction of people and water, the meaning and interpretation of the water element throughout history, and the reasons for the inclusion of the water element in design have been analysed. The fifth section of the thesis consists of implementation. In this section, there are visual surveys to determine which different emotional reactions are evoked by the different uses of the water element and which kinds of affects are they suitable for. The sixth and final section of the thesis consists of the analyses of the results of the visual surveys and their evaluations. In this regard, the different psychological affects caused by the different uses of the water element have been put forward, and which affects they are suitable for has been determined. As a result of the outcomes, suggestions for the ways in which to use water as a design element have been presented. Keywords: Water Element, Interaction of Space-Person, Emotions