Everywhere I look lately, people are asking how to design better environments. We want to create better homes, better schools and colleges, better organizations, and more. Yet how to do so remains an open question.

I have been actively wrestling with (seriously, losing sleep over) this question over the course of my career. As a behavioral scientist, I investigated how environments shaped behavior in social insect societies. As an educator, I strove to facilitate college classroom environments that cultivated learning, belonging, and connection while also supporting the ‘whole’ student (including encouraging my students to get more sleep – hah!). As a parent, I have been intentionally tailoring my home spaces and rhythms to better support my kids and family.

In my explorations of how to design better environments, I have noticed that many conversations seem to focus the word ‘better’ on aspects that seem most relevant for the environment of choice. For example, when we think of homes, we might think primarily about belonging and responsibilities. When we think of schools, we might think primarily about learning and growth. When we think about organizations, we might think primarily about contribution and agency.

Yet as we know both instinctively and through decades of research, people thrive under a set of core conditions that exist not in isolation, but in integration. We need belonging AND learning AND contribution – and more – in order to thrive.

Given this, I suggest that we broaden our focus from designing for ‘better’ in particular domains to designing more comprehensively for the conditions that support human thriving. After all, if we’re going to design an environment to better support people, why not design it for flourishing?

In other words, the central question becomes: how do we intentionally design environments that cultivate flourishing?

In this post I’ll present my best attempt so far to organize an answer to this question: the FLOURISH Design Framework.

Note: This is the second post in a guided series about designing for flourishing. You can find the first post here.

Introducing the FLOURISH Design Framework

The FLOURISH Design Framework, based on principles from behavioral science, identifies:

• Eight conditions that support flourishing

• Four design approaches we can use to design for those conditions

• An actionable, iterative design process to evaluate and design environments for flourishing

Let’s look at each of those features in more detail now.

Eight Conditions that Support Flourishing

What conditions support flourishing? I identify eight conditions, grounded in behavioral science and serving as accessible entry points for assessing environments.

Using the acronym FLOURISH, the conditions are:

• Foundational Values – your environment promotes the select values that are held in the highest regard.

• Learning & Mastery – your environment offers opportunities for learning and growth in meaningful areas of interest.

• Open-Ended Play & Joy – your environment encourages pursuit of creativity, play, and non-goal-directed activities.

• Unconditional Belonging – your environment is a place where all members feel accepted and valued for who they are.

• Responsibility – your environment allows and encourages members to contribute and add shared value, promoting a sense of mattering.

• Independence – your environment offers a sense of autonomy, agency, and age-appropriate ability to make choices.

• Safety – your environment is a safe environment in terms of physical, emotional, and online safety.

• Health – your environment facilitates healthy habits for energy, including nutrition, movement, and rest.

Four Design Approaches

Knowing what conditions we want to cultivate in an environment, how do we design for them? While entire books have been written detailing how to cultivate each of the eight FLOURISH conditions, I have organized the advice into four general categories, which I call design approaches.

The four design approaches are:

• Space – by making changes to a space, behaviors become more automatic.

• Time – by intentionally creating rhythms, we prioritize what matters.

• Tools – by equipping environments with helpful materials, we support desired actions.

• Support – by connecting with people and opportunities, we provide encouragement.

An actionable, iterative process to evaluate and design environments for flourishing

The FLOURISH Design Framework is a step-by-step process that we can use to design environments to support flourishing. Specifically, through this framework we first assess the environment for what FLOURISH condition we’d like to strengthen, brainstorm and select which design changes to make, and observe the results in order to guide future design decisions.

The steps of the FLOURISH Design Framework are:

• Assess which FLOURISH condition would best support your needs now.

• Reflect on the ways in which the condition is supported in your environment.

• Design changes that could strengthen the condition in your environment, using the four design approaches.

• Experiment by choosing one or more design changes to try.

• Observe how the change influences how your environment functions and feels, and use those observations to shape future changes.

We’ll next see examples of how this framework looks in practice.

How I am using this framework in my own home: two stories

I’ve been applying this framework in my home in order to better support our family life. Here are two stories that illustrate the framework in action.

Story 1:

Shortly after my daughter learned how to read, she became eager to read more independently. My husband and I started putting her to bed a bit earlier each night to give her a dedicated time to read by herself. We set a basket by her bed and added a variety of books - some easy to read, some a bit more challenging. Sometimes she’d read but sometimes she’d stay up playing, so we turned out the lights and introduced a book light. Other times she’d grow bored of the books there, so we began refreshing them regularly - swapping out books for new ones from the library. When we tucked her in to say goodnight, I’d take mental note of which books she had read and would sometimes read them together with her the next morning.

This example illustrates the framework in action, specifically for better supporting FLOURISH condition L – Learning & Mastery. Over time we established - and experimented with - the design approaches that best supported independent reading for our daughter:

• Space: her bed

• Time: each evening before bedtime

• Tools: a basket, books from home and the library, and a book light

• Support: refreshing her books with new ones from the library, noticing which she was interested in and reading them together

It’s important to note that we didn’t design all of this at once. We learned and made changes along the way, like adding the book light and (to this day) making sure that we refresh books frequently to keep the reading spark alive. That iterative process is an important aspect of framework.

Story 2:

Earlier this spring when this framework idea was beginning to formulate in my mind, I noticed myself feeling frustrated and annoyed on a daily basis. Past me would have downplayed my feelings and pushed through. But recognizing that our feelings are clues to what we want or need, I instead became curious and decided to intentionally apply this framework.

I realized that the FLOURISH condition that was bothering me was I (Independence) – specifically feeling like it was missing for me. I was ready to actively work on this idea but needed more agency to do so. When I thought about it, what I really needed was time to think and write – but to get time with young kids around, I also needed support. So, I asked my husband to watch the kids for an hour each afternoon (support and time), went to my desk at home (space), and pulled out my notes, books, and laptop computer (tools). And honestly, that’s how I was able to articulate this idea and bring this article into existence!

How you can use this framework

Taken together, the stories above show how we can assess our environment for which FLOURISH condition we’d like to strengthen, try some small design changes, and adjust as we go.

I’ve been informally applying elements of the framework in my classrooms and home for years, and you probably have too! But since developing the framework recently, I have found it to be helpful in identifying which of the eight FLOURISH conditions feels ‘off’ - and taking intentional design approaches to better the situation. My hope is that you find it to be useful as well.

An exercise to try:
Choose an environment that you’re interested in designing to be ‘better’ (your home, organization, etc.), and try following the FLOURISH Design Framework process by answering the following questions:

• Assess: Of the eight FLOURISH conditions, which feel well-supported in your environment? Which are absent, underdeveloped, or causing friction? Choose one condition that you want to strengthen in your environment.

• Reflect: Ask yourself: if the condition that you chose were fully supported, what would that look and feel like? How would it improve daily life for the people in your environment? What in your current environment is a barrier to this vision?

• Design: Brainstorm ways to design for that condition using the four design approaches.

  • Space: What spaces are needed to support this?

  • Time: When could this show up in your days or weeks?

  • Tools: What materials or items could support this?

  • Support: Which people or opportunities could encourage this?

• Experiment: Of the design ideas that you brainstormed, which seem both realistic and impactful? Choose one - and try it.

• Observe: After trying your design change, observe what shifts. Is it working well for supporting your chosen FLOURISH condition or not, and why?

Further Reading

The FLOURISH Design Framework sits at an intersection of several fields of inquiry, including behavioral science, design, and human flourishing. While many authors have explored individual aspects of the FLOURISH conditions (and I’ll refer to those in future posts), I was happy to recently find a newly released book that explores similar questions about how we can design environments to promote well-being.

I discovered it a few weeks ago when visiting the library with my kids, and it immediately resonated with me. It’s a compelling and thought-provoking book, and I highly recommend it if you’re interested in this topic.

Leidy Klotz. In a Good Place: How the Spaces Where We Live, Work, and Play Can Help Us Thrive. 2026.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading! This framework and post represent my best attempt to synthesize and organize our understanding of how we can design environments to support flourishing. I’d love to get feedback on this idea, so please let me know your thoughts in the comments!

What’s next: This is my second post in a guided series about FLOURISH Home Design. In future posts, we will examine each of the eight FLOURISH conditions in more detail.

FLOURISH Home Design: If you’d like to apply this FLOURISH Design Framework to your home environment, there is a home design workbook available at my website, www.flourishhomedesign.com.

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I’m so glad that you’re here. Our home environment shapes daily life in many ways. Just think of all of the times that we start the day by checking our phone because it’s right there, or stay inside on a rainy day because our umbrella is buried in the back of a closet. By making small yet intentional changes to our home environment - like moving the phone to a different room at night, or hanging the umbrella near the entry door - we can create transformative impacts on our desired home experience.

In FLOURISH Home Design, I share my approach to designing our home spaces and rhythms to support not just daily living, but flourishing. No matter what your living situation is, my approach offers you a framework that you can use to thoughtfully design your home environment to better shape how daily life functions and feels.

This is the first post in a guided series. In this introductory post, you’ll learn about me and why I started FLOURISH Home Design, how my approach differs from traditional home advice, and an introduction to my design framework. Along the way, I’ll share questions for you to reflect on about your own experience. Let’s begin!

About me

Hi, I’m Katie Boes - a behavioral scientist, college educator, and loving Mom. After stepping away from academia several years ago, I began applying my interests in behavior and well-being to better support my home and family in our daily life.

My background story: a small home design change with a big impact

As a scientist-educator who values a blend of high-level thinking and practical approaches, I spent my career in higher education intentionally designing classroom environments to promote learning, connection, and belonging. It was rewarding work, and I felt supported through many resources and colleagues.

However, at home with young kids and drowning in daily life, I quickly discovered that - much to my dismay - there was no holistic ‘framework’ for designing or managing my home. In a state of semi-desperation, I dove into decluttering projects, clinging to a hope that by organizing closets and drawers, I could somehow bring more order and meaning to our daily chaos.

While decluttering and organizing were fun diversions that brought some peace to my nervous system (hello, minimal closet with capsule wardrobe!), they seemed to fall short of the holistic, meaningful vision of what I knew that my home could offer for my family.

The stakes felt high: after all, I was designing my kids’ childhood home, which in turn would shape their childhood experience. No pressure, right?!

One day, a small change brought about a surprising and wonderful shift in how my home felt and functioned: I set a basket of children’s books on our couch. At the time, my oldest child was an infant, and our mornings before work had always felt rushed and unfulfilling as I’d bring her to the couch and quickly feed her before rushing onto other tasks. As soon as I set the basket there, however, one of us would reach for a book and we’d spend our short morning time together reading, learning, laughing, and connecting.

This simple change (adding a basket of books to a common spot) completely transformed the feel of our mornings together. Even better, it sparked a morning reading tradition that my kids and I continue to this day, many years later.

And more recently, it sparked my idea for FLOURISH Home Design.

Premise: your home shapes more than you think

Like my basket of books example, your home environment shapes daily life in powerful ways. You know this intuitively when:

• You set a journal on your nightstand and suddenly start writing more often before bed.

• You postpone working on a meaningful project only because you haven’t scheduled a time for it.

• You clear an open space on the floor and your toddler starts spontaneously dancing.

• You reach for another handful of chocolate chips because they’re in a clear container on your kitchen counter (not speaking from experience here…)

• Your family intentionally decides to take a family walk after dinner each evening, creating an established time for movement and connection.

These choices, while small and often unintentional, create a big impact on your experience. Knowing this, we can harness and intentionally design our homes for the behaviors we want to cultivate.

How FLOURISH Home Design differs from traditional home advice

Traditional home advice usually centers on topics like:

• Organizing and decluttering

• Tidying and cleaning

• Style, décor, and aesthetics

These are all very important components of managing a home, and they can certainly shape how we feel in our home in some ways. However, in general, traditional home advice primarily focuses on managing our physical home and overlooks the potential of our home environment for shaping desired behaviors and outcomes.

FLOURISH Home Design extends beyond traditional home advice by helping you design your home to better support the people living inside it.

Specifically, FLOURISH Home Design:

• Is based on principles from behavioral and organizational psychology

• Is personalized for you and your home through reflection prompts

• Offers a repeatable framework that you can apply as life seasons change

Introducing FLOURISH Home Design

In FLOURISH Home Design, I combine my background in behavioral science and education with my lived experience to offer a comprehensive approach for intentionally designing your home spaces and rhythms - not just for surviving or managing, but for flourishing.

Wait – is flourishing even possible? I argue yes (well, sometimes at least!). From behavioral science, we know that there are particular conditions that we humans need in order to thrive. When we thoughtfully design our home spaces and rhythms to support these conditions, we are in fact designing to support flourishing.

What are the conditions that support flourishing? My FLOURISH Design Framework identifies eight conditions that are grounded in behavioral science and serve as accessible entry points to assess environments. Using the acronym FLOURISH, the conditions are:

• Foundational Values

• Learning & Mastery

• Open-Ended Play & Joy

• Unconditional Belonging

• Responsibility

• Independence

• Safety

• Health

For each of these eight conditions, I identify four design approaches that can be applied to intentionally support each condition. The four design approaches are: time, space, tools, and support.

In future posts, we will learn the FLOURISH Design Framework, the eight FLOURISH conditions, and the four design approaches in more detail.

What’s next? And – thank you!

Congrats – you’ve finished reading my first post in a guided series about FLOURISH Home Design. In the next post, we will learn the FLOURISH Design Framework, an iterative and reflection-based approach for designing your home to support flourishing.

If you’re ready to learn and begin applying the framework now, there is a comprehensive workbook available at my website, www.flourishhomedesign.com.

Thank you so much for your time - I appreciate you being here! I look forward to working with you to support flourishing, one intentionally designed home at a time.