This graduation project is a demonstration of the potentialities of a theory-based approach to design for mood regulation, which is based on the belief that design can influence mood by enabling and stimulating people to engage in effective mood-regulating activities.

For this project, the western home bathroom was chosen as a context of research, due to the personal interest of the author in the relaxing properties of bathing, and bathing related activities such as the Finnish sauna, and the Turkish steam bath.

The goal of the project was kept very broad in the beginning and gradually narrowed down during the analysis phase. A significant contribution to the creation of a well-defined design goal was given by the realization that, while relaxing practices are usually well accommodated in the domestic environment, little attention is paid to activities that influence people’s mood towards a high energy state such as exercising.

Eventually, the project’s objective became to design a piece of furniture, in which physical exercise-supporting features coexist with more relax-oriented attributes. This product would aim to make high energy state inducing activities an integral part of the everyday domestic routine.

Three concepts were generated by following an incremental process in which insights from one idea served as a starting point for the next. The third and last concept was then developed using a broad variety of techniques such as sketching, collage making, digital visualization, prototyping, and testing.
The final result is a piece of furniture to exercise and to relax on, which form stands somewhere in between a bench and a chaise longue. Its name is Ginnasio, a reference to the building that, in Ancient Greece, functioned as a training facility, but also as a place to relax, socialize and engage in philosophical discussion.