This study was stipulated by today’s limited living conditions of middle income households in Bangladesh who have economic constraints that contribute to hindering improvement of their existing domestic settings that may affect occupants’ mental health and wellbeing. The design of domestic living environments tend to influence occupants’ emotions, feelings and moods. Thus, domestic environmental experiences need to be examined and incorporated into architectural design decisions. To understand the notion of such experiences, this study reviewed literatures concerning the related domains extensively. This study found the significant impact of domestic environments on human perceptions. Each design of domestic settings affects occupants’ emotional responses positively or negatively. Through this study, the term domestic environmental experience was defined as users’ experiences of cognitive perceptions and physical responses to their domestic built environment. In addition, it led to proposing the composition of domestic environmental experiences that need to be correlated with architectural design solutions. Nonetheless, this study did not examine the correlation where the emerging notion of Environmental Experience Design (EXD) may serve as the mediator. Accordingly, this new horizon of EXD research needs to be explored further with the aim to improve domestic built environments in Bangladesh which were the original driver of this research.

Today’s architectural design approaches do not adequately address the relationship between users’ spatial, environmental and psychological experiences. Domestic environmental experience generally indicates users’ cognitive perceptions and physical responses within dwelling spaces. Therefore, without a clear perception of occupants’ experiences, it is difficult to identify proper architectural solutions for a domestic environment. To understand notions of these domestic experiences, the current study explores the theoretical relationship between spatial and environmental design factors within domestic settings which led to the concept of “Environmental Experience Design (EXD)”. Extensive data exploration was conducted using a combination of thirty keywords through different databases (e.g., Scopus, ScienceDirect, PubMed, Google Scholar, Mendeley and Research Gate) to categorise the relevant literature regarding thematic study areas such as human perception and phenomenology, environmental design and psychology, residential environment and design, health-wellbeing and user experiences. This study has identified theoretical associations between spatial and environmental design factors of different domestic spaces that can stimulate occupants’ satisfaction and comfort by reviewing eighty-seven studies from the literature. However, occupants’ contextual situations significantly impact domestic spaces, where spatial and environmental design attributes may be connected to diverse sociocultural factors. The scope of explanation about user context is limited, to some extent, in environmental design theories. Thus, combining occupants’ contexts with spatial and environmental design factors will be a future research direction used to explore the notion of “Domestic Environmental Experience Design”

Bangladesh is an emerging nation that is urbanizing the fastest. Generally, middle-income families (as the main economic contributors) reside in high-density urban housing due to their socioeconomic disparities in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where physical design aspects focus on current housing sectors. The congested living situation worsens indoor environmental quality and has a negative impact on occupants’ mental well-being in their dwellings, resulting in a direct or indirect adverse effect on their productivity. Occupants’ living conditions can be improved by adjusting individual perceptions and experiences in their domestic environments. This study has developed an “Environmental Experience Design (EXD)” methodological approach that reflects a user-centered design theoretical framework. A field study on dwelling units (±1000 sq ft) conducted throughout the selected housings in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was carried out to examine occupants’ domestic experiences using semi-structured and structured interviews. After binary and thematic coding with significance, “Association Rules and Cluster Analysis” were used to ascertain relationships between three aspects (spatial, environmental, and user context) to explore and customize outcomes. This EXD methodological approach can be utilized to create an environmental (architectural) design solution that will enhance mental well-being by considering occupants’ needs and demands in household settings locally and worldwide.