The Environmental Psychology Research Lab (EPRL) is a group of undergraduate researchers supervised by Dr. Lindsay McCunn, Professor of Psychology at Vancouver Island University.
We are currently working on a number of local and international research projects. Each study seeks to measure and understand building occupants’ and community members’ attitudes and behaviours in various built and natural environments, as well as in the design cycle.
If you are interested in becoming involved with an existing study, or in engaging with the lab to start a new project, please get in touch with us!
Historical Repository for Environmental Psychology (HREP)
About the HREP
The Historical Repository for Environmental Psychology (HREP) is a developing scholarly and public-facing collection housed within the Environmental Psychology Research Lab (EPRL) at Vancouver Island University and Directed by Dr. Lindsay J. McCunn.
Environmental psychology is an interdisciplinary field that studies how people think, feel and behave in relation to their physical surroundings—including homes, workplaces, schools, neighbourhoods, public spaces and natural environments. The field contributes to research and practice in areas concerning mental health, sustainable design, climate adaptation, environmental perception, community wellbeing and human-environment relationships.
Founded in 2024, the HREP was created to collect, preserve and showcase materials related to the history and development of environmental psychology. As many foundational scholars in the field reach retirement, important archival materials—including correspondence, newsletters, reports, books, photographs, syllabi and oral histories—risk being lost or dispersed.
The HREP seeks to help preserve this intellectual and disciplinary history while supporting future scholarship, teaching and public engagement. The project is inspired in part by archival and outreach models such as the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology that demonstrate the importance of making the history of psychology visible and accessible through both physical and digital collections.
Current holdings
Cataloguing is ongoing. Current materials in the HREP include:
- more than 150 scholarly journal issues
- more than 70 professional newsletters and organizational reports from groups including:
- the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA)
- Division 34 of the American Psychological Association
- the Environmental Psychology Section of the Canadian Psychological Association
- the International Association of People-Environment Studies (IAPS)
- more than 30 books and book chapters
- research reports, directories, meeting minutes and conference materials
- scholarly correspondence and photographs
- course syllabi, lecture drafts and teaching materials
- audio interviews with leading environmental psychology scholars
Oral history collection
An additional component of the HREP is its growing oral history collection. These recorded interviews, conducted by Dr. McCunn, focus on scholars’ experiences shaping the field of environmental psychology, reflections on its development, major challenges and hopes for future generations of researchers.
This project received approval from the VIU Research Ethics Board in 2025 (File No. 103494). Interviews are currently being catalogued for eventual inclusion in the repository’s online database.
Ongoing development
The HREP continues to grow as new materials are donated and catalogued. Partnerships and connections with the VIU Library’s Special Collections are currently being developed. Additional resources will be added to this website over time.
Early contributors
The HREP gratefully acknowledges early contributions and support from scholars including:
David Canter, Robert Gifford, Daniel Stokols, Bob Marans, Perla Serfaty-Garzon, Maria Vittoria Giuliani, Hartmut Günther, Silvia Collado, Janet Swim, Gary Evans and Katherine Arbuthnott.