Abstract
Although well-being studies started in the psychological field (1961) when well-being was discussed in terms of “the good life,” the concept dates back to ancient times from Aristotle's idea of eudaimonia to the human-centered understanding of the Renaissance. During the last decades, different studies focused on social, physiological, and psychological impacts of the dwelling and the neighborhood, and some even applied neurosciences to architecture. The contribution of studies carried in healthcare contexts has been crucial, as well as experimental results in workplaces, but also biologists, psychologists, and sociologists supported theory and practice, starting from the 1960s. Nevertheless, the specific role of architecture and interior space has been quite under-evaluated. This chapter aims to discuss the foundations of the concept of living well evaluating the understanding of “space for human well-being” in different cultural contexts at different times.
TopSearch For “The Good Life” In Times
In most of the studies that focus on the meaning of well-being and measures to understand it, we come across Aristotle’s view of Eudaimonia. Aristotle influenced European thought about ‘the good life’ for 1500 years. According to Jackson (2013), the recent discourse of ‘happiness’ and growth of ‘positive psychology’ are perhaps reworkings for today of an Aristotelian construction of ‘well-being’ and importantly, ‘well-being’ in this form continues to conjure a vision of all that is best and desirable for a person. Jackson argues that philosophical ‘well-being’ is a tool for thinking, an idealised aspiration rather than a real state to be attained or measured. According to Aristotle, euphoria is innately ideal: we seek euphoria for the sake of euphoria. It must be innately independent, needing no other entity. It is man’s ideal good in itself (Raftari 2015). Similarly Jackson (2013) discusses that for Aristotle well-being was an ideal, the culmination of a person’s idealised journey to ‘actualise’ all his potential. In this form, it certainly has no opposite - there is the ideal of well-being, and the person’s potential for well-being, but no ‘ill-being’