This is a very special Best Of podcast episode, taking the best pieces from Season 2 and stich them together into one episode!

We talk with architects, psychologists, designers, activists, writers, urban planners – a host of amazing community changemakers on season two and we weave all of those together for you all. We start with a basic understanding of what is loneliness, social health, and social capital and why is it so important?

Then we dive into office spaces, public places, housing, and more – exploring examples from across the globe as to what types of design strategies and approaches foster social connection and combat loneliness.

What happens when you design a neighborhood specifically to rebuild social connection for people society has pushed to the edges? Austin's Community First! Village has become one of the most talked-about housing experiments in the country — not because of its architecture, but because of what its design makes possible between the people who live there.

The pandemic forced a question designers had been avoiding: how do you create conditions for genuine human connection when proximity itself feels dangerous? Patricia Gruits of MASS Design joins Erin to explore the surprising overlap between designing for infection control and designing for social health — with a special focus on what senior living spaces get right and wrong about belonging.

Small changes in how a space is arranged can measurably shift how much we want to connect with the people in it. In the second half of their conversation, environmental psychologist Colin Ellard shares the surprising research on what actually makes us happy in our home environments — and what it would take to design spaces that support our social lives rather than quietly undermine them.

What can evolutionary psychology teach us about the spaces where human connection actually happens? Environmental psychologist and author Colin Ellard joins Erin in this first of two episodes to explore how our ancient social instincts shape what we need from the places we gather — and how COVID-19 revealed just how much those needs had been designed away.

Three in five working Americans report feeling lonely. Most of us look inward for the cause. But what if the design of our cities — the streets we can't walk, the stores that closed, the parks that were never built — is one of the least-examined contributors to that loneliness? This episode explores the built environment's role in the loneliness epidemic.

Why does the design of a room affect whether people connect inside it? How do our streets, schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods shape our social lives — often without our awareness? In this introduction to Shared Space, Erin Peavey lays out the case for why architecture and design are among the most powerful and least-discussed levers we have for addressing loneliness and building social health.