Natasha Reid is founder of MATTER SPACE SOUL, a specialist design lab shaping places for health, wellbeing and social sustainability. Having practiced in architecture, she has focused on the social, psychological and emotional impacts of places over the last decade to develop new approaches in response to human nature and pressing societal issues. She is an advocate for the power of design to create change that matters and often speaks at conferences on forward-thinking approaches to the urban challenges of today.

Without a deep understanding of how people experience the places we create, how can we aim to shape built environments that could fully enable human and social wellbeing? 

The talk will explore the development of an alternative design philosophy, catalysed through engagement with the Conscious Cities movement and Centre for Conscious Design, and through a series of “live” prototype design projects. This new model for “Human Experience Design” was applied into pragmatic application in local government in London as innovative design guidelines in 2023. 

Overall this body of work aims to shift the way places are made to reflect a deeper sensitivity to our human nature and human needs. It explores the potential for new forms of dedicated “human design” practice at the intersection of disciplines, sectors and ways of thinking, combining design with health and human sciences, as well as arts-led methods.