Saturday, October 13, 2007

d/visible » Blog Archive » The Rise of Neuro-Architecture
This is a fascinating blog post that I won't even try to summarize. Here is a snippet.


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.

1 comment:

Mike Reardon said...

Interesting snippet, and armed with only that, I would like to offer this observation.

I have been to some remarkable buildings in Massachusetts (State House) and have seen the folks who work in them make the most boneheaded decisions.

Of course, some special interest groups were also part of the scenery.

Otherwise, I feel a little better about sending my son to an expensive school....the architecture is nice.