My favorite environment is the NYUAD campus. First of all, I think what makes an environment an environment and differentiates the specific one from others is that a specific environment contains certain objective things which we can sense (lawn, clock, temperature, humidity, color, taste etc. ), the atmosphere these objective things created as well as the subjective feelings we have in the environment (chill, happy, calm or anxious).
Given my own understanding of an environment, I pick the NYUAD campus as my favorite environment because its comfortable weather and fresh air makes me feel chill and relaxing, the colorful designs in student lounges and well-groomed green lawn keep me fresh and sharp in mind, the friendly professors and hardworking peers push me work harder and have a greater pursue in my academic life etc, therefore the environment is the synthesis of the feelings that the objective things in it create for me – being in the NYUAD environment makes me feel GOOD, it’s a sum of all the pleasant feeling I have in the campus.
As for what makes it a place rather than a space, as far as I am concerned, a space only emphasis on the size and location of a certain area with no content, however as I mentioned before, an environment or a place has its unique content and characteristics made up by its objects and the atmosphere they created within the environment, and by sensing (smell, see, touch, feel etc.) these different objects, different person will have various feelings and experience, therefore the synthesis of all of these feelings, experiences together with the objects within a space create a place.