The Rise of Neuro-Architecture
Long before anyone knew what sound waves were and the ways in which they travel through a medium, people knew that buildings shaped a certain way could help enhance or stifle sound. With this knowledge, the ancients built amphitheaters and auditoriums in which their concerts and plays could best be heard by the assembled audiences below. Yet, it is obvious that scientific knowledge of how sound works and the ways in which it moves is now taken into consideration whenever one designs a room or building where it’s important to be listened to. Knowledge that was once developed through trial and error over countless centuries has now been codified and refined as a technical study that is applied, more or less, consistently with the builder’s desired effects.
In the same vein, the act of designing a room or building to induce subtle, psychological effects is nothing new. Houses of worship have long been made to inspire awe while a monarch’s throne room is meant to give a sense of power and majesty. But much like advances in physics have refined the design of auditoriums, advances in psychology and neuroscience have begun to refine the practice of architecture and room design.
While the science of how the space around us affects neurological activity is still relatively young, the principles behind it are not, especially in commercial environments. Shopping malls, for example, have been known to use their architecture to lure people into the smaller, specialty stores. The original design ideal for an enclosed mall was to have several large anchor stores that would be the primary draws for shoppers. If they wanted to comparison shop, they would need to pass by all the smaller specialty stores to get where they need to go. Ed Streb, a communications professor at Rowan University, however, said that around the early 90’s, this stopped being an effective tool.
“This idea began to lose it’s effectiveness. Time-stressed shoppers became frustrated that they were being ‘forced’ to walk through the entire mall, and began to rebel. While malls are still a dominant retail concept, the public has shown much greater affection for so-called ‘lifestyle centers’ - upscale, open air centers where you can park in front of the stores you want to shop in, and then be on your way,” said Streb.
In media critic Douglas Rushkoff’s book Coercion, it is noted that, even without advanced knowledge of the unconscious motivations behind people’s consumptive actions, the designs of commercial areas were engineered to play not on practical considerations for the products contained therein but, rather, on the world in which the very experience of shopping in the store would come to represent.
Frank Baum, while better known as the author of the Wizard of Oz, was also among the first professional retail art directors. Rushkoff states that Baum had, by the turn of the 20th century, perfected creating an atmosphere of affluence and opulence, with the building’s design deliberately engineered to elicit feelings of class inferiority. Baum’s idea was that the only way rectify this perceived inadequacy was to spend money on the products sold therein and prove one’s worth accordingly.
Using design and architecture to produce a desired psychological effect has come a long way since the early 1900’s. Jim Olds, a neuroscientist at George Mason University, has a great deal of interest in the areas where he feels architecture and neuroscience intersects. When the building that houses the institute he heads, the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, went through a period of expansion, Olds wanted to use the physical structure of the building itself to promote productivity and creativity. A big part of this was taking into account input from the people working there, the overall end-users, who requested things like more sunlight and lots of trees. A notable design choice that Olds mentions, though, was made with the intention of encouraging collaboration. In order to break the habits of the academics who have a habit of isolating themselves, both physically and socially, spaces were designed that encouraged collaboration. “We had people from many disciplines - anthropologists, mathematicians, neuroscientists and the like. Scientists tend to work in silos … [So, to discourage isolation] the space itself enforces collaboration, so we have multiple spaces in the building which enforced the close proximity of folks who would otherwise be off in their own space, their own little science. That’s one key aspect,” said Olds.
According to Olds, there are genuine neurological connections between behavior and the physical space it takes place in. He reasons that babies learn how to reason their way through the world almost entirely through visual and auditory stimuli, which are intimately connected to the surrounding environment. With new research showing that, even in adulthood, the brain remains remarkably malleable, Olds believes that a strong argument can be made that the architecture and design of a building can possess strong psychological impacts.
“A space affects your eyes and it affects your sound, your hearing, and just through those two sensory modalities alone, those signals go into the brain and we can image the brain, non invasively, and see the effect of visual and auditory stimuli in the brain in living adults and we know it’s profound,” said Olds.
Other studies have reached similar conclusions. An experiment conducted at the University of Minnesota asserts that ceiling height can affect how one thinks. In a series of experiments, people were asked to do perform certain tasks, some of which favored abstract thinking and others favoring detail-oriented thinking. It was found that, in general, people focused more on specifics when the ceiling was eight feet high and more on the abstract when the ceiling was ten feet high. One of the authors of the study, Joan Meyers-Levy, suggested that this has great implications. She suggested that, perhaps, managers would want higher ceilings to think of new, broad initiatives while technicians and engineers might want lower ceilings to help them focus on details.
According to Olds, not every design firm is sold on the idea that architecture affects people on a neurological level. Still, he notes that what he calls ‘neuromarketting’ is a growing and well funded field that could well expand into mainstream architecture.
“Well, neuromarketting is a big field and it’s highly funded… And brain scanning is now replacing the focus group as a way to do marketing and certainly product placement in a retail space is an extremely important component of marketing,” said Olds.
Written by d/visible contributor Chris Gaetano.
All images used for this article are under copyright to their respectable photographers, as listed in the properties/details of each image.
October 13th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Really don’t understand the attraction of the “lifestyle center.” It looks to me like a strip mall on steroids.
October 14th, 2007 at 7:52 am
That pseudo-wreck in the lead photo would be a depressing monstrosity to enter on a daily basis. Nice premise, but I fear that it will only serve to inspire more pointless gimmickry doomed to immediate obsolescence. The idea as a whole seems to emanate from people with far too much time on their hands.
October 14th, 2007 at 10:15 am
“pointless gimmickry doomed to immediate obsolescence” (previous comment)
The trouble is that designs like these are incredibly over-thought and full of purpose, but that purpose is so far-fetched and strange (and probably pointless) that no one gets it and the whole building just turns into a dumb novelty. Many architects don’t seem to realize that if no one has any idea what a design is supposed to mean or if it even means anything at all, then the design has failed.
October 14th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Neuroarchitecture is as old as people are old. The problem is that we think we know so much when truly we know so little, not only about architecture, but about ourselves. Some few have been more perspicuous. It takes no neuroscientist to realize what poet Walt Whitman knew intuitively, that “All architecture is what you do when you look upon it (did you think it was in the white or grey stones)” As psychoanalyst Erich Fromm warned, “As long as I am not awre of the forces which drive me, I am irresponsible; I am shoved around by forces which act behind my back.”
“Buildings,” Richard Neutra once said, “require careful attention because they are not nomadic tents that can be moved…such man-made surroundings envelop the child, the adolescent, and the adult like an inescapable fate.”
And speaking of inescapable fates, one has only to cast an eye on the architecture of Richard Meier who, in one fell swoop of his soaring psyche, managed to destroy Grand Army Plaza, a Brooklyn landmark. Like too many architects he aspires. Perhaps all men aspire, but none more than architects. I don’t believe an elephant would have built a pyramid or a parthenon even were he upright and prehensile. I do believe that if an architect had his own way, he’d make himself king for a day; he’d draw up a plan for the future of man and man would have nothing to say.
“Good, original architecture depends just as much on an understanding public as on its creator,” mused Walter Gropius. I’m still waiting.
October 15th, 2007 at 7:11 am
[…] while technicians and engineers might want lower ceilings to help them focus on details. d|visible digg_url=”http://havecoffeewillwrite.com/?p=5131″; digg_skin = […]
October 15th, 2007 at 8:28 am
I feel that architects are under-appreciated artists, especially when I see/hear comments like the ones made above. Yes, you may dislike or disapprove of a particular building’s design - and yes, some buildings are obviously out-of-place in their constructive creation when compared to their neighbouring structures - but is no one familiar with the phrase (or something akin to) ‘Art is a reflection of life, therefore we live as art’?
Architecture is one of the most obvious, and most difficult, ways to incorporate art into our everyday lives. Those whose genius devised the design behind medieval Gothic churches in Europe; the Byzantine buildings in Greece and later reconfigured in Russia; the delicate shapes of shrines in Japan, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia; the infamous Taj Mahal in India; the beautiful tipis of Native Americans - all of these, and more, were created with more than just shelter, worship or other more practical use in mind. These were gigantic artistic venues, were marble and coloured glass and granite and wood and paint and chalk and clay and every other possible means for creating some sense of visual, subconscious messaging was utilized. I doubt anyone would question the ingenuity of Frank Lloyd Wright - I know many people who dislike his work, but they do appreciate it for the spark of brilliance behind his design.
Yes, many architects may aspire to greatness that may or may not be beyond their means to design. However, architecture is one huge facet of our evolving culture, and without it, many other things slow their pace in terms of expression and creativity.
October 15th, 2007 at 11:23 am
The creativity and imagination are fascinating. I believe it better though that we educate our young aboput purchasing and living in any of these corporate contract structures. HOA’s, COA’s, CID’s, PRD’s, etc., are one way tickets to h___, forelosure, discrimination and financial ruin, in far too many cases. Beauty and elegance from the outside says nothing about the horrors, deceit, prejudice and ignorance lurking inside.
October 17th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
In reference to the last comment:
“I believe it better though that we educate our young aboput purchasing and living in any of these corporate contract structures. HOA’s, COA’s, CID’s, PRD’s, etc., are one way tickets to h___, forelosure, discrimination and financial ruin, in far too many cases. Beauty and elegance from the outside says nothing about the horrors, deceit, prejudice and ignorance lurking inside.”
Um, wow.
Did you read this article or not?
This article is about the design of corporate business structures, not residential buildings. The concept presented of ‘Neuro-Architecture’ seems, to me, more of a concept regarding the ingenius presentation of architecture as a sub-conscious marketing ploy that plays on emotions and thought patterns evoked by particular colors, shapes, textures, and materials utilized in a building’s construction and overall decor.
Please read the articles here before commenting on them - it’s annoying for those of us readers who are here for creative intellectual stimulation to be brought off of a design high by comments like yours.
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:05 pm
[…] So the space around us affects our neurological activity and of course designers and architects are well versed in creating the desired psychological effect. And apparently ceiling height can affect the way you think. The University of Minnesota conducted some experiments and found “people focused more on specifics when the ceiling was eight feet high and more on the abstract when the ceiling was ten feet high“. So high ceilings would encourage visionary, big-picture thinking, whilst lower ceilings would be perfect for detailed, technical tasks. Mmmmm….better have a look at the ceiling at my work place! And clearly knowledge managers know the importance of designing space that encourages collaboration. You can read more about the intersection between neuroscience and physical space on d/visible. […]
December 19th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Oh, and did not know about it. Thanks for the information …
January 13th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I was reminded of a thought I had when an attending of mine reiterated a similar personal
finding that when she (and I) dreams about her home it is always her childhood home and
not her current home or where her parents live currently. I wonder why that is the case
and also wonder if it just her and me that dream this way. I also wonder if it can have
applications in custom home design where an architect would put in elements of a client’s
childhood home into there current home make it more desirable. I also wonder if there are
common elements of all individuals who have dreams of there homes tht can be used to
produce tract housing or prefab elements of design.
bijal
www.neuropimp.com
March 17th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
I am inspired. I have always wondered, after discovering the Psychology of Colour…. whether
or not other things in design could have a profound, and unknown by us, affect on us.
What will be exciting will be the irrefutable proof (via brain waves, etc) that
this is not theory at all, but usable incredible science. Art & Science meet on the same
plain…in our minds!
November 13th, 2008 at 10:57 am
[…] following is an excerpt from a fascinating article in dvisible magazine http://dvisible.com/?p=291 discussing “neuroarchitecture”, which I’ll paraphrase as the study the effect of our […]
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:17 pm
thank you..so much
February 21st, 2010 at 4:54 pm
[…] the article that we are currently looking at The Rise of Neuro-Architecture, the above principles have been covered in detailed along with other important points that needs to […]