Several good pieces / places of research on this topic. A lot of stuff you will see (in libraries) comes from the 60s/70s, when Psychology was not really in a position to contibute anything (truly) useful. For background read some Edward Hall, and Amos Rapoport.

For more modern thinking, the INternational Association for People-Environment Studies has a useful digital library. The InformeDesign pages at University of Minesota and the research digest that they send out is often a good starter.

The American Psychological Association has a couple of chapters with listservs that are sometimes enlightening. I think 34 and 10 (Look for the two named (Rachel and husband) Kaplan on the distribution list). Kaplan & Kaplan's seminal research on the effect of green spaces on developmental achievement are must reads.

The British Psychological Society is not quite so good for this topic.

Firms like DEGW have done the most on implementing this kind of research into the Built Environment, in association with the likes of the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre at the RCA, London.

The key fields are supportive environments for the less abled, work/learn spaces, and healing / medical environments. The hot topic at the moment in Psychology is that of Positive Psychology, i.e. not looking at the mentally deranged, but looking at those who are functioning well, and helping them to function better.

Have a look at those and come back to me. I have accumulated quite a few (disorganised) papers on the crossover. I am interested to hear how you get on with this, so do bump the thread, or email me with progress.

i'd start with rudolf arnheim...

look up the stanford prison experiment

thanks for you three guys answering, especially you psyarch.. once i get going i'll definetly let u know about my progress