The Sensorial Choice Score

§ What it is

One measure, 0 to 100.

The Sensorial Choice Score is our attempt to put a number on something the industry has been content to leave vague: whether a place is actually doing anything for the animal standing in it. Not whether it photographs well. Whether it feeds the nervous system the conditions two and a half million years of evolution taught it to expect. We read that across six channels — the air you breathe, the light you keep time by, the sound around you, the heat and the way the air moves, the nature in view and within reach, and the living world in the soil. Each is a pathway to a body, not a landscape feature: soil, water, planting, and shade are inputs to those channels, not the channels themselves.

The composite is a single number from 0 to 100, and we say plainly what it is: provisional, not a validated index — a working rubric we publish openly so it can be read, used, and argued with. A standard that needs a license isn't one. Every property we read gets a score. Every property we build is designed to raise it.

§ Why it exists

Most ground scores badly — and nobody was counting.

The modern built environment quietly degrades the very signals the body evolved to read as safety: it fouls the air, floods the night with light and the day with traffic noise, traps heat, strips the green out of view, and paves over the living soil the immune system used to meet. The result is a deficit you can feel and, until now, couldn't name. The Score names it. You cannot fix what you refuse to measure, and you cannot sell "a little better" to someone who has no idea how bad it was.

The rubric

Six channels into the nervous system.

I. Air What you breathe, all day Strong

Carbon dioxide and fine particulates — PM2.5 — in the air around you. Associated with cognition and blood pressure. Trees, soil, and distance from traffic are inputs here; the channel is the air itself.

II. Light Brightness by day, dark by night Strong

Daytime brightness and spectrum, and a night that actually gets dark. Associated with circadian rhythm, sleep, and mood. Canopy, sky exposure, and shade are inputs; what the body reads is the light.

III. Noise The sound a place makes Strong

The sound environment — traffic and HVAC drone against natural sound. Associated with cardiovascular load and stress. Moving water, planting, and grade can shape it, but the channel is what the ear actually receives.

IV. Thermal Temperature, and how the air moves Moderate

Temperature and air movement — how hot it gets and whether the air stirs. Associated with comfort and the body's own thermal regulation. Shade and water are inputs; the channel is the heat on your skin.

V. Nature Green in view and within reach Moderate

Greenery, canopy, vegetation, and visible access to it. Associated with stress, well-being, and recovery. Planting and terrain are how you build it; the channel is the nature the body can actually see and reach.

VI. Microbiome The living world in the soil (candidate) Emerging

Environmental biodiversity — the soil and plant life the body makes contact with. Associated with immune and mental-health pathways. The evidence is still emerging, so we carry it as a candidate channel, not a co-equal one. Living soil and contact with it are the inputs.

§ Reading the number

81–100

Baseline. Ground that meets what the body actually evolved to need. Rare, and the target of every build.

40–80

Partial. One or two dimensions carry it; the rest are missing. Most "nice" landscapes live here.

Below 40

Deficit. The conditions have been engineered out. Most modern lots — lawn, concrete, sterile soil — sit here, and feel like it.

Sensorial Performance.

One measure, 0 to 100.

Most ground scores badly — and nobody was counting.

Six channels into the nervous system.

Get your ground's score.