Neuroscience for Architecture

We all require spatial knowledge of our environment. Many people spend the better part of their day in a built environment, and therefore, much of their thought about space is directly intertwined with the architectural and urban form of their surroundings. How does the form of people's surroundings affect their spatial knowledge? The intention of this paper is to create a link between human spatial cognition research and architectural design through review of three major research articles and some supporting papers. An empirical study was conducted with human subjects in complex multi-level architectural designs and thinking aloud protocols and thought for performance measures of experienced and inexperienced participants in different way finding tasks were compared. Spatial cognition and way finding research as well as design cognition are well established as fields of research. It is nevertheless largely unknown how architects reason when they try to integrate way-finding-friendly factors into their designs. In two semi-structured interviews architects were asked to give critique on real world example cases as well as to solve predefined design tasks . The qualitative analysis focuses on perspective taking and other skills related to the anticipation of users in the building. The main finding is that the anticipation of visual access for single locations is done well but that multiple locations are seldom considered. A consequence would be that anticipation of users' perspective is restricted to episode-like cognitive walk-through [2]. Spatial cognition concerns the study of knowledge and beliefs about spatial properties of objects and events in the world. Cognition is about knowledge: its acquisition, storage and retrieval, manipulation, and use by humans, nonhuman animals, and intelligent machines.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019

Does design affect our senses? This may seem a simple question and therefore, it should have a simple answer. Almost all architects will say, yes it affects our senses, our moods, our emotions and our behavior. But, how many of these architects take this into consideration when they design? If really the built environment affects the user physically and psychologically, how many architects know about the human senses? How these senses function? What kinds of stimulus influence each sense and what kind of reaction or behavior should be expected accordingly?

Architectural Design, 2020

Thomas D Albright and Sergei Gepshtein of the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in La Jolla, and Eduardo Macagno of the University of California in San Diego, review several complementary experimental approaches developed in different branches of visual neuroscience, helping to understand how humans capture and analyse information about the built environment. The authors propose how these approaches can be used in support of evidence‐based architectural and urban design.

CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ARCHITECTURE: ECOLOGY, URBAN ENVIRONMENT, EXPERIENCE, 2020

This chapter focuses on an emergent topic in contemporary architecture theory and practice, the connection between architecture and neuroscience, a field with potential to help understanding the biological and sensory effects of the built environment on human beings. This relationship mirrors a larger context, where architecture, in order to cope with increasingly complex issues approaches other areas of knowledge, such as biology and physiology. Neuroscience is particularly relevant in this scenario considering that there have been many more discoveries in the past 25 years than ever before, such as the genetic sequence of the DNA in the human brain, completed only in 2003. Different than behavior sciences in 1960s, neuroscience offers more precise tools to measure the impact of spatial experiences upon man. Neural images and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), for instance, have enabled the visualization of the inside of the brain when it engages a spatial experience, and have been used in the past 10 years in multidisciplinary studies by several research and educational institutions, a knowledge that starts to be translated to the Human Sciences. Tracking the origns of the interface in question, some if its precedents from the 19th century until the mid-1980s will be revisited in order to establish a relationship with contemporary neuroscientific notions applied to architecture, including: Initiatives related to the empathy theory in the 19th century and its continuity in the Gestalt, as well as more sporadic efforts throughout the following century, mainly the phenomenological and multisensory experience on which several current studies focus on.

Today, as the architectural design and development has becoming increasingly mature, the functions are no longer the principal contradictions of building, and on the other hand, the psychological feelings generated by building are not emphasized by the architect. Different buildings can generate different psychological feelings. Each building will generate different spaces, each building also consists of various spaces, and each space can give people different feeling. The psychological space of building has both important application value and great artistic value, which can not only help the architect to more systematically design the overall architectural space, but also help the building user to more comprehensively recognize the space. Today, with general emphasis on the architectural environment, the research and application development of architectural psychology and the realization of a harmonious and uniform relation between people and building can actively promote the architectural creation field.

Cortex, 2020

Complexity This room looks… Simple Complex Organization This room looks… Disordered Organized Naturalness This room looks… Artificial Natural Beauty This room looks… Ugly Beautiful Personalness This room looks… Impersonal Personal Interest This room looks… Boring Interesting Modernity This room looks… Aged Modern Valence This room makes me feel… Bad Good Stimulation This room makes me feel… Bored Excited Vitality This room makes me feel… Lifeless Alive Comfort This room makes me feel… Uncomfortable Comfortable Relaxation This room makes me feel… Stressed Relaxed Hominess This room makes me feel… Alienated At home Uplift This room makes me feel… Diminished Uplifted Approachability If I saw this room, I'd… Leave Enter Explorability If I saw this room, I'd… Ignore it Explore it c o r t e x 1 2 6 (2 0 2 0) 2 1 7 e2 4 1

Journal of emerging technologies and innovative research, 2021

This study has been undertaken to bring forth the subtle effect an architectural building or room or structure has on us. Symmetries and geometries have always affected our conscious and subconscious mind but the research in past to know these effects were naïve. In this paper we will look upon different symmetries and with appropriate examples and theories we will try to reason the different subconscious emotions aroused due to different symmetries of structures. In conclusion we shall discuss few steps to increase the volume of research in this field and ways to inculcate these in mundane contemporary structures. Index termssymmetries and geometries Introduction:

International Journal of Advance Research Ideas and Innovations in Technology

Senses, the only information input media, play a mediating role between the built spaces and their experiences by the users. These spaces act as a stimulus on the senses of its users, the response to which is initially generated by the 'non-conscious' mind of the user; eventually leading to a like or dislike towards space. Architecture is all about experience created in a space, the look, feel and aesthetics; the success of which is measured by the time a user spends appreciating the space. Structuring senses, as the name puts forward, is a study that focuses upon the relationship between a space structure and its impact on the sensory media of the users, aiming to establish a balance and reduce the gap between the design intent and the design product. This declaration shall point towards an exchange of dialogue between a person and space. 1. AN ARCHITECT'S RESPONSIBILITY From the three basic needs of human life, Food, Clothing and Shelter, the building industry is associated with the latter one. Having spent centuries in developing upon these necessities, this industry strongly attends to the user experience in the spaces being built. The environments we live in affect us hugely in molding our lifestyle in the social and cultural aspects; sometimes economic aspects as well. The power of design in shaping the lives of people has not been away from the attention of the field theoreticians. The role of this industry, today, is to be responsible for a comfortable, healthy, smooth and happy living of all the people. The ultimate purpose of building the varied scale settings is to enhance the experience of the users spending their lives in these spaces. In the interaction between built spaces and human beings, Architects play a role similar to a movie director; involving reading and recognizing spatial potential, on the one hand, and understanding societal needs on the other. The design language adapts from situation to situation in accordance with these factors, constantly constructing perspectives anew, observe and listen to and since the space from a range of different angles of expression. As a discipline, architecture harbours the potential to endow ephemeral things in concrete. [1]. 2. CIRCUMSCRIBING THE SCOPE  This declaration focuses upon public architecture-spaces effectively used by multiple groups and classes of people.  Talking about moods and emotions in spaces for all, this shall not necessarily be similar for all individuals. This process of subconscious assessment is also associated with the personal memories and the social and cultural upbringings of an individual user.  This declaration is a literature review including substantive findings, as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to the topic. 3. THE INTENT OF BUILDING DESIGN Architecture is all about creating experience, having been conceived after using up enormous resources and time, every space instils an experiential emotion or feeling within its users, which in most of the cases happens through the non-conscious-a term used by Sarah Goldhagen [2], referring to cognitions that we could access consciously, but most don't. Architects are ethically passive designers, whether designing a single room or an entire community, the intention is to enhance the leftover space for the user(s) that exists between things-could be walls, greens, water, furniture or any feature. With this, it is clear that architects are on a roll of creating these set of events in spaces for various users. Architecture is a journey over a series of spaces travelling through numerous transitions, breakpoints and interaction zones, setting up the mood for the forthcoming

Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2015

We examined the effects of ceiling height and perceived enclosureddefined as perceived visual and locomotive permeabilitydon aesthetic judgments and approach-avoidance decisions in architectural design. Furthermore, to gain traction on the mechanisms driving the observed effects, we employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore their neural correlates. Rooms with higher ceilings were more likely to be judged as beautiful, and activated structures involved in visuospatial exploration and attention in the dorsal stream. Open rooms were more likely to be judged as beautiful, and activated structures underlying perceived visual motion. Additionally, enclosed rooms were more likely to elicit exit decisions and activated the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC)dthe region within the cingulate gyrus with direct projections from the amygdala. This suggests that a reduction in perceived visual and locomotive permeability characteristic of enclosed spaces might elicit an emotional reaction that accompanies exit decisions.