Neuroscience Within Architecture
Buildings are getting designed faster than they are being developed for over a decade. It’s a rugged mountain to climb to begin creating interactive spaces for its users, but it’s not impossible. The basis of architecture has always been the concept of designing a building per a client’s needs. As mentioned in Mindful Interiors by Sims Hilditch, “Our bodies and brains respond to the built environment; humans are like plants.” We need a design to help us improve our health from mental, physical, and emotional aspects. If you think about it, methods derive from our brains, which are situated in a building for more than 90% of the time. So, how do we seemingly integrate our neuro necessities into architecture? Many articles and scientific research have proven how much our built environment affects our health, stemming from mental, physical, and emotional aspects that integrate our human response to the built environment.
The aging question is: How does Neuro-Architecture improve design? Neuro-Architecture uses our cognitive influence within four simple principles to inform and not determine design through analyzing, recollection, new experiences, and sensation and perception. In doing so, the design integrates a range of solutions on form, complexity, environment, acoustic qualities, etc.
So let’s jump into these four principles:
1 | ANALYZING
Analyzing consists of discovering important system properties within your design within architecture, which we can use to integrate neuroscience. Ask yourself what you are building for; who will your occupants be? What materials are you going to use? Don’t think of cost at this time. Find two pivotal points within the site or building, such as natural light or human movement that will take place. Design a space with a specific impact. Remember, architecture can affect human behavior and profoundly impact people to make them feel happy, sad, content, etc.
2 | RECOLLECTION
For decades architects have been designing based on these principles without knowing, through trial and error. By recollection, most designs will begin to implement and promote typologies that influence a moment in architecture, from using heavy timber trusses to warm space or integrating rounded décor to soften a room and increase feelings of positivity.
3 | NEW EXPERIENCES
Many use a concept for redesigning their homes every year: “move out and move back in.” this allows you to activate brain pathways and stimulate the dopamine chemical in your brain that motivates exploration. How does this relate to architecture? Simple, consider the path of foot traffic in your design and pan out spaces that can become transformative spaces, such as gardens, sensory walls, light-filled rooms, curving walls, organic materials, etc.
4 | SENSATION AND PERCEPTION
From the beginning, architecture has dominated design through sight, creating buildings that appeal to our vision. But in the past couple of years, designers have begun to integrate the rest of the human senses: sound, touch, smell, and sometimes even taste. By creating multisensory interactions through natural/artificial light to explore universal properties that expand an individual’s perspective within a space. In order to accomplish this in design, a designer has to be researching how to reduce stress from day-to-day life and integrate nature into an area that will both integrate sensation and perception for a building and its users.
Of course, these are not the only principles designers and architects should solely use to design. There are hundreds of other principles that can help derive a design. But if you take one thing from this article, let it be one outstanding question you should ask while designing: What do I want the users to feel when entering this atmosphere?
References:
CBC. (2018, October 19). Neuro-architecture: How to design a space that will help you stay sharp and stimulated. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/life/thegoods/neuro-architecture-how-to-design-a-space-that-willhelp-you-stay-sharp-and-stimulated-1.4624036
Fisher, T. (2016, October 06). How Neuroscience Can Influence Architecture. Retrieved from: https://www.architectmagazine.com/practice/how-neuroscience-can-influence-architecture_o
Ltd, T.S. (2020, February 01). Emerging Trends That Will Shape the Future of Architecture. Retrieved from: https://medium.com/studiotmd/emerging-trends-that-will-shape-the-future-of-architecture-356ba3e7f910
Salingaros, N.A. (2019, October 27). How Neuroscience Can Generate a Healthier Architecture. Retrieved from: https://patterns.architexturez.net/doc/az-cf-193130
Sims Hilditch. (2019, March 01). Mindful Interiors. Retrieved from https://www.simshilditch.com/journal/mindful-interiors