In one scene from Good Will Hunting (1997), an intense Robin Williams, in the role of the therapist, says to a very young Matt Damon:
“You’re afraid of what you might become if you let someone in.”
It’s not just a line about an untameable genius. It’s a line about trust: about how complex it is to grant it, to open up, to find your own place. At work, it happens all the time. We move between teams, calls, shared projects, and yet often remain on the emotional margins of what we build. Because to truly belong means allowing ourselves to be seen with our voice, our vulnerability, our presence. And we are not always willing to do that.
More than empathy: psychological safety
This is where the concept of psychological safety comes in, coined in 1999 by Amy Edmondson, Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard: the belief that a group performs better when everyone feels free to speak up, make mistakes, propose ideas. Safety, not comfort. It’s not about eliminating risk, but about creating a context in which risk is sustainable. Where trust becomes a platform rather than a vague promise. If the fear of being judged shuts expression down, the certainty of being able to contribute multiplies it. It is precisely from this awareness that Emotion Based Working (EBW) was born: the approach developed by Altis to design spaces starting from the emotions they are meant to sustain. EBW turns what is often intangible into method: the relationship between architecture and emotional states. Designing places where people feel they belong, therefore, means giving shape to trust, empathy and shared identity.
Measuring the immeasurable
So can we measure “feeling part of something”? To some extent, yes. Neuroscience talks about hormones such as oxytocin and dopamine; psychology speaks of motivation; marketing of engagement. But the truest indicator remains human: the spontaneous willingness to stay, to contribute, to take care. In Altis projects, this translates into spaces that encourage encounters, but also individual recognition. Shared areas, yes, but also personal niches: because collective belonging can only be built if everyone can find their own place, physically and emotionally.
Belonging, in the end, is not a state. It is a verb in constant conjugation. A daily, quiet practice of caring for context. Because no open space, on its own, is enough to make us feel part of something, but a space designed around people can still make us say, with sincerity, “I feel good here.”
If this reflection feels even a little like yours, write to us at [email protected] and let’s talk about it.
