Practice | |||||||||||
Giving "Delight"
Its Scientific Due Interdisciplinary study will match environmental factors with physiological responses in the workplace |
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by John P. Eberhard, FAIA |
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To date, neuroscience research has tended to be oriented towards illnesses of the brain and the mind. This is a natural inclination for those scientists who work in government labslike the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)whose support comes from government programs. Funding is much more likely to be approved by Congress if the research promises a cure for a disease or the prevention of health problems in the future. Architects, however, would see alternative uses for neuroscience study, such as how the mind processes information about architecture-related experience. The AIA should be celebrating the experiences that people can have in buildings that are functional, strong, and delightful (to hark back to Vitruvius). The profession has a knowledge base well tuned to "function," and to "strong," through its various guidelines for design and structural knowledge built on the science of physics. "Delight," however, has been elusive. For most of history, beauty was understood to be related to buildings whose designs were well proportioned and harmonious within the discipline of historical styles, such as the classical orders. In the early 20th century, architecture was "freed" from the discipline of historical styles, and the concept of beauty in architecture (and the consequent delight of the users) has become an acquired taste. However, there is a fundamental response of the mind to many attributes of design that is more dominant than the ephemeral concepts of taste. Neuroscience may
help explain response to architecture The
interdisciplinary study The project aims to develop a series of cognitive
activities and associated neurochemical, neuro-hormonal, and immune markers
as predictors of stress or productivity in everyday office settings. The
current study brings together a diverse, multidisciplinary group that
includes the American Institute of Architects Office of Research Planning
(AIA) and a number of government agencies. For example: Offices provide an environment where workers perform cognitive functions to produce a variety of results. Physiological responses of the central nervous, endocrine, and immune systems are involved in accomplishing these cognitive, creative, and interactive tasks. Scientific knowledge of such functions will help organizational leaders and their professional designers to better understand appropriate criteria for office design that will increase workers' creativity, productivity, health, and well-being. If we in the AIA address the "celebration" of human experiences in architectural settings, we will likely help set a new course for neuroscience studies of the positive aspects of how and why our brains support the processes of our minds. The positive aspects would likely include the contribution of certain colors to patient recovery in hospital settings, response of children to acoustic conditions below threshold levels in classrooms, contribution of sunlight to the well-being of nursing home inhabitants, and impact of windows with a view on worker productivity in the office setting. While most of these positive responses are intuitively obvious, neuroscience can now provide "hard" evidence of how these experiences are formed in the brain and why our minds perceive them as positive. Copyright 2002 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved. |
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