Isabelle Sjövall Is the First Person to Complete a PhD in Neurodesign

Text by: Atti Soenarso Photos by: Sara Appelgren

Neurodesign is a multidisciplinary field that combines neuroscience and design to promote human, economic, and ecological sustainability. Isabelle Sjövall is a Swedish neurodesigner, brain researcher and author with over 15 years of practical experience in high-end projects in architecture, design, and the property industry. She has an interdisciplinary educational background, having studied economics at the Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden, architecture and design in Florence, Italy, and neuroscience, psychology and mental health at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Kings College London. Isabelle Sjövall is the first person in the world to complete a PhD in the new interdisciplinary field of neurodesign, which is concerned with how the brain responds to built environments and how design affects people psychologically and physiologically.

Her research is based at the Faculty of Brain Sciences, Institute for Behavioural Neuroscience, University College London (UCL), a world-leading university ranked top in neuroscience and neuroarchitecture, creating rare opportunities to conduct cutting-edge research. The research focuses on how design affects cognition, creativity, and wellbeing and what components can positively influence them. Isabelle Sjövall will investigate many elements of the built environment from a multisensory perspective, such as materials, tactility, colours, shapes, light and biophilic design. The aim is to contribute new research-based knowledge that can be applied and used in future environments to promote health, performance and wellbeing.

PEARL, which stands for Person-Environment-Activity Research -Laboratory, is a new world-first research laboratory in London and part of UCL’s state-of-the-art -facilities. The approximately 4,000 square metre laboratory specialises in measuring how people react to and interact with their surrounding environment.

“Our research at PEARL is important because it can generate rigorous new discoveries that change policies guiding the design for healthy cities.”

The words neurodesign and neuroarchitecture have become buzzwords in recent years. Unfortunately, when things become popular and attractive, they sometimes lack scientific basis. Isabelle Sjövall believes there is an incredible potential in neurodesign that we have not yet fully realised. It is partly because brain research has developed rapidly in recent years alongside new technologies that can better measure research results.

There is an incredible potential in neurodesign that we have not yet fully realised

“One part is about increasing knowledge, and the other is about implementation. But it’s always basically about the purpose of different types of environments for different meetings. If you think about a meeting room or office, you have a different purpose than what you have in the hospital and to the end goal of your environment.”

It’s interesting to see where the industry is going, says Isabelle Sjövall, and how they are trying to use neurobiology. What is universal? What do others need to focus on? Be creative or social if you can use the environment to enhance that work. Research agrees that thoughtful architecture and design contribute to better physical and mental health in our living environments.

“I would say there’s a term called nudging, which you’ve probably heard of. It gave Professor Richard H Thaler the Nobel Prize in Economics at the University of Chicago back in 2017. The research on nudging shows, among other things, that we are much more gullible than we think. And that’s because we have the same brain we had when we lived in the savannah. We’ve become more intelligent in many ways, but we still have this biological brain with us.

“This, in turn, is linked to different types of behaviour. For example, if we create an environment where we can be curious, we can use biophilic design. It is very much about the connection to nature. Our research shows that building such elements into different types of meeting rooms or places also stimulates curiosity to explore the environment. It becomes an effect of moving around more or perhaps becoming more creative. It’s also related to the fact that if we create these environments and don’t fool ourselves, we can navigate in the right direction.”

Isabelle Sjövall explains that we are exposed to many different impressions and stimuli when we enter a room; these range from light and lighting to various materials, sounds, and odours. All of this simultaneously becomes an impression for the brain, which the brain puts together into a “picture” of what we experience as the atmosphere of the room.

We’ve become more intelligent in many ways, but we still have this biological brain with us

“What we also want to do is ecological validity, which we see has been missing in the research. Ecological validity is whether social science results can be applied to people’s everyday lives and natural social environments. In research in general, things are often measured in so-called silos. You look at one single variable. For example: how light concentration affects, or how the acoustic environment affects, social interactions. But what’s so exciting and difficult about this research is that we’re looking at multiple things simultaneously.

“It’s well known that if you look at the medical systems, there are different diagnostic tools to make a diagnosis to see where you are. But there, we have discovered no such tool for locations. We also know that people are affected by the surrounding environment, but there is no way to measure it. There is a company called the International Well-Building Institute, and they have done an experiment and laid the groundwork. We have developed a new method that will cover all the factors that we know from research which affect the brain and different kinds of outcomes related to the environment. The method we have developed is called NDIX, Neuro Design Index.

“For example, it could be about a meeting: was it a productive meeting, did I feel included? Did I feel focused and productive? It’s always linked to different types of goals. It’s been a lot of work to base it on existing research and develop this framework and our index.

“Now we are testing it in some of the first environments. It’s great to see that we’ve got significant results when we’ve measured a standard environment, as it was before, and then we’ve brought in neurodesign. Then, we measured afterwards to see its effects on the participants. We have also seen better creative performance using biophilic design and greenery.”

Isabell Sjövall says they have worked closely with the property company Castellum and RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden is a wholly owned Swedish government research institute that collaborates with universities, businesses, and society for innovation development and sustainable growth). They have also worked with Sweden’s Ministry of Housing and Public Health.

Ecological validity is whether social science results can be applied to people’s everyday lives and natural social environments

“It has been very interesting to work in that context. We see that there is no framework for measuring, and we think that property owners and the hospitality industry are often looking for a way to benchmark.”

In examining her research’s three most important questions, Isabelle Sjövall has been able to develop prediction models. And she believes that the Neuro Design Index could be a very good basis for creating future prediction models.

“Then we will be able to create better meetings. We will connect better with each other. This will increase productivity, and be more focused and creative. We are looking for the purpose of the different environments and a way to quantify the quality of the design and how we can make more informed choices. I would say that’s my number one.

“Then I also think that combined with the fact that we’re looking at biomarkers in the brain imaging, you can get many new insights in real-world environments. We also do fMRI, where you bring a simulated environment inside the scan because they are enormously large. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measures the small changes in blood flow during brain activity. It can be used to investigate which parts of the brain handle critical functions, evaluate the effects of stroke or other diseases, or guide brain treatment. fMRI can detect abnormalities in the brain that cannot be found with other imaging techniques.

“Wearable technology, which is computer-based technology embedded in wearable products such as clothing and accessories worn on the body, is also becoming increasingly important. The aim is to gather information directly through scanning and sensors. It shows how people experience different places, and can provide a lot of information, like what kind of environments make us stressed, and if we are too stressed for a long time and start to perform worse, we tend to be less altruistic.”

What we see in brain research is that the relationship with nature is essential for our survival

The third important issue for Isabelle Sjövall is biophilic design. Biophilic design is an architectural trend that aims to integrate nature into our living environments. It is based on the idea that humans have an innate connection to nature and that bringing natural elements into our daily environment can improve our health and wellbeing.

“There has been a separate dialogue on nature and sustainability. What we see in brain research is that the relationship with nature is essential for our survival. For example, children exposed to a lot of greenery in nature have better mental health. There are also changes in brain structure and function depending on the amount of exposure to greenery and human, ecological and economic sustainability.

“I think this will play a completely different role, but if you want it to be linked to lifestyle, it could be about brain food, for example. Conference centres and hotels care about how food and drink affect the outcome of a meeting. It can also be other cultural experiences. It can be a restorative environment. Environments that support people’s wellbeing and health, and are connected to nature. I think the demands have increased and continue to increase to make people feel better in meetings. But it also creates fantastic opportunities to create unique environments.”

Looking five to ten years ahead in her research, Isabelle Sjövall hopes we will be able to precisely determine what dose and exposure people need to live healthy and sustainably.

“Sustainable living is also linked to quality of life, performance, health, etcetera. But now we know so much from the research, that we have used this knowledge to create prediction models to predict different types of outcomes, based on the design, and how we know people are using the environment, and how they perform and feel in that environment.”