Waiting Spaces as Mental Health 'Gyms': A Research through Design Framework for the Situated Activation of Wellbeing Micropractices Where People, Time, and Infrastructure Converge

Cities have expanded access to physical wellbeing by placing exercise equipment in parks and public squares: infrastructure can offer opportunities for practice without requiring a gym, a fee, or deliberate search. This study asks whether a similar logic can extend to everyday mental wellbeing: can urban infrastructure facilitate voluntary activation of wellbeing micropractices where people, time, and urban infrastructure already converge, without additional time, financial cost, or specialized access? Using a Research through Design (RtD) approach, this study develops the Wellbeing Practices in Waiting Spaces (WPWS) framework through four phases: (1) qualitative clinical exploration using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (N = 8); (2) iterative design and urban prototyping in Amsterdam, Milan, and Barcelona; (3) exploration of everyday appropriation across seven countries (N = 41); and (4) comparative analysis of public-space wellbeing interventions. Low rates of voluntary flow interruption in high-flow contexts were treated as a generative finding, suggesting that instrumental movement may constrain attentional availability, leading the inquiry toward stationary contexts: waiting spaces. Three interdependent components of situated activation emerged: (1) spatio-temporal conditions shaping attentional availability (when); (2) inner human capacities, including mindfulness, appreciation, and compassion (what); and (3) visual mediating devices providing legible, brief, voluntary invitations to wellbeing micropractices (how). Across the urban prototypes, voluntary flow interruption, defined as stopping for ≥5 seconds, ranged from 1% to 5%. In Phase 3, 85.4% of participants reported mentally repeating the phrase, and 60.9% reported sharing it. WPWS is proposed as a transferable design architecture rather than a fixed intervention. It reconceptualizes waiting spaces as an underused spatio-temporal condition for situated activation, while recognizing that this proposition has not yet been empirically tested against other urban contexts. The findings do not establish causal or clinical effects, but provide a foundation for investigating how existing urban infrastructure can expand everyday access to wellbeing practices. Keywords: Urban wellbeing; Waiting spaces; Latent wellbeing infrastructure; Situated activation; Mental health equity; Trauma-informed design; Wellbeing micropractices.