Welcome to our open and public Glossary of Terms. This glossary is under development at PSYCH.RAUM to support interdisciplinary, iterative and open design processes. Here, we share a few examples to illustrate how we work with words and images to foster dialog and develop ideas for project teams.

adjacency
adjazenz
adjacence

Near, close or in some sort of connection with something. In this case, it is used to describe or determine, in a scientific or theoretical way, a record of what ‘room functions’ are related to each other, from a workflow, therapeutic or purely practical manner.

affordance
angebotscharakter
affordance

A word relevant to our projects though its strong overlap in both psychology and design. According to Wikipedia it can be defined thusly > via psychology (1), affordance is what the environment offers the individual; while via design (2) affordance … refers to possible actions that an actor can readily perceive. We believe that self explanatory elements which are offered by an environment, space, object or person can go a long way towards providing comfort and calmness. For further Info see >  J. J. Gibson’s writings.

affordance-based
affordanzbasiert
basé sur l'affordance

An object, thing, or spatial mechanism which uses affordance characteristics to explain itself; ie., a piece of furniture which through its design, reflects or enhances what’s on offer.

archetype
urform
archétype

Again, this is an important word which is relevant both in the psychiatry world and in the architectural world. In design, an archetype appears readily familiar, as it is based on a “first” or original form and can in this way help provide comfort due to its accustomed form. In Jungian psychology, this idea also finds importance as it is related to patterns of thought which may be culturally universal and thus also operating on an instinctual level.


A chair is to sit… as an archetypical element it is related to the body and invites people to use it; thus it can provide comfort by its mere presence.

Further words and concepts may be added and posted here as time allows. For now, a list of further words and ideas which seem to recur regularly in our projects might include the following…

atmosphere

milieu

bespoke

permeable

biome

phenomenon

consensus

piazza

gestalt

schematic