Applied aesthetics constructs as a problem of environmental design

The study aims to demonstrate the potential of environmental design as a tool for creating conditions that facilitate human aesthetic feelings by merging environmental design issues with applied aesthetics. The article offers a new perspective on the problems of applied aesthetics through the lens of environmental design, a highly sought-after field of project activity. The work identifies the role of applied aesthetics in the theory and practice of environmental design. The features of forming aesthetic views in everyday and applied aesthetics are revealed within the context of the general philosophical reorientation of culture at the end of the last century. The paper establishes a modern system of views on the human habitat as an object of aesthetic experience, considering the design interpretation of the environment as a “mastered space” – a space where a person is currently present and perceives as their own. It is emphasized that within an emotionally and sensually mastered space, a person maintains a close connection with surrounding objects. The focus is placed on the primary object of environmental discourse: lifestyle. A pertinent question for everyday aesthetics is raised: is there a dominant aesthetic image in modern design practice that embodies the essence of the everyday? The scientific novelty of the study lies in the first attempt to identify a dominant aesthetic image in environmental design that personifies everyday life. Two types of such constructs are analyzed: the design of open public urban spaces and the design of residential environments. The substantiation is based on the tasks of applied and everyday aesthetics and environmental design, showing the merger of their issues into a single whole within the “image of the environment”. Using a specific example of a modern open public urban space in Moscow, the study demonstrates how environmental design relates to intra-environmental aesthetic parameters (laws of harmonization: form, rhythm, symmetry, contrast, color, light) and is considered holistically, as a design-aesthetic category. As a result of the study, an expansion of the scope of applied aesthetics is noted: being realized through design, it improves the quality of life, human productivity, health, and mood, and determines the standard of living for society as a whole. The philosophical and aesthetic dimension of the environment, where lifestyle is analyzed based on the individual's aesthetic reality, facilitates the interpretation of the environment as a place of aesthetic perception and experience.