Architecture Research 2017, 7(1): 16-23 DOI: 10.5923/j.arch.20170701.02 The Effect of the Built Environment on the Human Psyche Promote Relaxation Hazhir Rasoulpour * , Farzin Charehjoo Department of Architecture, Sanandaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj, Iran Abstract The improvement of human psyche and help to achieve psyche calmness is undoubtedly one of the most important roles of the built environment in manifestations of designing environment. The present study examines role of the build environment and recognizes environmental factors affecting the promotion of calmness of human psyche and defines the environment by benefiting from library studies and evaluation of previews data and opinions of experts in the area of environmental psychology and studies its relationship with human psyche. This study in addition to introduce some factors such as environmental capabilities, architecture manageability, interestedness in place and dependence to place as a factor related to the environment and mutually affecting human psyche, identified the factors influencing the promotion of calmness of human psyche and provided their results in the form of a general conclusion. Keywords The built environment, Human psyche and behaviour, Calmness of human psyche, Urban designing 1. Introduction The origin of considering to psyche and soul probably goes back times farther than recorded history. In fact, the interest in understanding invisible dimension of human can be traced back to the oldest curios minds. Human being has always wondered about his behaviour and thoughts about the human nature and behaviour have filled many religious and philosophical books. In the fourth and fifth century BC, Plato, Aristotle and other Greek scientists dealt with the issues that psychologists today are involving in them, issues such as memory, learning, motivation, perception, dreaming, and irrational behaviour (Schulz, 1991: 19). Aristotle introduced psyche as one of his first discussions and if one philosopher be worthy of initiator in psychology in the ancient world, undoubtedly, he is Aristotle. He is a person that stated the detailed and regular discussion of basic issues in psychology for the first time (Miziak & Sexton, 1992:23). Although the literal meaning of psyche is soul, it has another meaning and application in psychology and refers to visible and tangible manifestations of nervous system work that includes all the cognitive elements like (intelligence, memory, perception, etc.), feelings and emotions like (fear and anger, happiness and sadness, etc.), action and reaction like (conduct, behaviour, movements, etc.) that of course, all of these elements affected by normal changes and morbid body, as well as affected by * Corresponding author: hrasolpor@yahoo.com (Hazhir Rasoulpour) Published online at http://journal.sapub.org/arch Copyright © 2017 Scientific & Academic Publishing. All Rights Reserved environmental factors and space and time conditions (Davoodian, 1997: 155). Accordingly, human behaviour and psyche are affected by his surrounding environment, studying and defining environmental psychology is important. Environmental psychology deals with the relationship between human and physical environment. Specially, social psychology has played an important role in developing environmental psychology by the primary and strong impact of Kurt Lewin and his students. Today, environmental psychology is studying a range of topics, but all that topics are based on empirical researches. More than any other psychologists, environmental psychologists’ studies include solving human’s problems in real environments (Mc Andrew, 2008:30). The basic issue of understanding the role of the build environment in people life is to understand the meaning of what is the meaning of «environment». «Surrounding environment» is the main criterion of environment definition (Gibson, 1966; Ittelson 1973). Therefore, each define, describe or explain of nature of environment application should be based on something in surrounding environment. The word environment (Mohit in Persian) has many applications that it is difficult understanding its meaning. Geographers define it as land and weather. Psychologists define it as people and their individual characteristic. Sociologists define it as social organizations ad processors. Architects define the buildings, open spaces and landscapes as environment. Each of these categories is linked to purposes that are expected from the environment (Porteous T1977). Any built environment has a set of capabilities for human activities and aesthetic experiences. This is the environment that influences human psyche by effecting on human behavior in specific range