Project strategies from Neuroarchitecture

Sensory function

“A place to think generates intense co-sensing, in emotionally dynamic terms, and inaugurates the creative process because something in the surrounding built environment compels us to think; a process we stumble upon rather than being based on recognition”

(Marco Frascari)

Neuroarchitecture, as previously mentioned, is in a first phase of consolidation of referents and objectives. This moment is crucial for its own definition as a project strategy, so it is essential to define the theoretical axis on which future research and studies should be built.

In this work, the notion of sensory function of architecture is proposed as a theoretical framework and potential nexus for the deepening and linking of all efforts in this field. The first function of Neuroarchitecture would consist of providing the built space with the function of positively stimulating the user in order to improve their cognitive abilities, prolong them over time and thus maintain the health of their nervous system. Faced with this, one might ask: how do neuroscientists describe the cognitive processes linked to architecture and how should they be translated into the built environment?

Neuroscience establishes that the human being is predictable in its nature, and therefore in its neuronal behavior, being able to extrapolate conclusions from the study of a group to other people. Neuroscientists also affirm that our brain not only has certain capacities, but that it must put them into practice based on three essential functions to remain stable: it needs to control its own body, including its own nervous system, to carry out physical actions that involve changes of position in space or relative displacements; secondly, it needs to monitor the outside world both from the physical point of view and in its social context, that is, to receive information and interpret it through different cognitive means; and finally, you need to learn from experience to cope with the inherent complexity of the world (Akil, 2018).

Recent studies have shown that “after just fifteen minutes, test subjects buried in a coffin-shaped chest in warm water show life-threatening disturbances in hormonal balances. The reflex activity of the human sensory organs turns destructively against us, if we are not able to direct it outward. Therefore it is obvious that any form of monotony must have a deleterious effect on us. We find a smooth, white, hard plastic covering on the room’s wall, floor or ceiling, as unsettling as acoustically dead rooms or the denial of tasty food and drink. (...) The reduction of conversation, the lack of light, the lack of oxygen in public spaces and the fact of being forced to stay in a room, be it in kindergarten, at school or in the home of an older person, can lead to self-injurious actions against the body” (Metzger, 2018: 140).

The described experiment seeks to take the elimination of control over our body and the absence of stimuli to the extreme in order to obtain easily quantifiable results and reveal the basic functions of our nervous system. However, the effect that many of the current built spaces can cause in the long term is not too far from the consequences of the essay. We find ourselves submerged in a storm of disruptive stimuli that keep our nervous system in a constant state of stress and anxiety that can cause serious damage to our cognitive system.

Architecture must understand the complexity of this neural process in order to introduce into the project those elements that really represent a positive stimulus. One of the errors committed by the previously mentioned sensory architecture could be in speaking of the senses from

Source: plataformaarquitectura.cl the Aristotelian concept of the term, since this supposes a reductionist simplification of the relationship between the human being and the reality that surrounds him. The five parameters by which it is governed are nothing more than a description of the organs that express their function towards the outside of the body, while cognitive reality goes further with sensations such as stability, movement itself, temperature, sense of consciousness, existence or language, among others (twelve according to the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, and up to thirty-four according to current considerations). This quantum leap must be linked to the estimates made by some scientists when they consider that “we are only aware of five percent of our cognitive function, while the remaining ninety-five percent goes beyond our reflective awareness and has a determining impact in our lives” even going so far as to affirm that “no matter what we do with our conscious mind, it is the unconscious that dominates our mental activity” (Muñoz 2018). The sensory reality is alien to the conscious perception of it, it is impossible to realize the total impact of our environment only from personal experience.

Thus, holistic sensory stimulation together with the autonomy of movement are essential for the development and cognitive maintenance of the person, coming to consider that “the environment and the stimuli that it generates cause a neuronal reconfiguration (and that) the complexity of the environment decreases behaviors caused by anxiety and increases neurogenesis” (Akil, 2018). Architecture needs to be able to become not only a physical shelter, but also a cognitive one from external reality. Architecture must be the mediator in our contact with the world and must evolve at the same time as our perception does throughout our lives. The pleasant space for the user will be one capable of transmitting security, but it will also provoke moments for meditation through the stimulation of the entire sensory spectrum.

Summarizing, we can establish that the sensory function of architecture must respond to three basic needs raised from neuroscience: movement, sensory stimuli and the multiplicity of experiences, all of them linked to cognition and directly related to the built environment. The multitude of discoveries that will be commented in the following sections are related to these three foundations, determining that the design must go beyond the optimal compliance with an established program: it must be configured based on the conscious and unconscious cognitive needs of the users to promote the thought and imagination from its anatomical reality.

a. Global approach - Movement

“Our perceptual field is composed of things and spaces between these things.’ Therefore, the distance between things acquires the status of a space that can be evaluated again.”

(Metzger, 2018: 65)

If the space in which we move has the same neurological relevance, be it the point of departure or arrival, or the journey itself, then the mechanistic position where these journeys are ignored and are intended to be reduced to the maximum does not make sense. As mentioned before, motor displacements should gain such importance that they are studied in design as crucial elements of architecture, and not as residual pieces between comparatively monumental spaces. We know that “if an individual is deprived of the possibility of movement, this leads to the degeneration of vital functions. The great reduction in stimulation resulting from the lack of movement leaves traces in the nervous system” (Metzger, 2018: 83). And this is not exclusively restricted to the architecture of the prison system, especially affected, in any case, but would be extensible to the city as a political and moral tool. If the restriction of movement in a prison seeks to penalize the prisoner by reducing their cognitive abilities to a minimum and thus dominate their body and mind, what does this same logic intend to achieve by optimizing movement on the urban and home scale if not reducing the capabilities of the individual as a whole to exercise control over their consciousness?

Regardless of the final intent of this fact, the answer should be based on building a stimulating environment that also encourages the movement of users within and through the different spaces. “The increase in the distance that people walk inside a building and around the site should always be judged as success” (Metzger, 2018: 174). It is about creating a building where distances are increased through connections, but also about blurring the architecture through the landscape and the environment, making users enter and leave the built rooms to access different programmatic activities. According to Winifred E. Newman, “the greater the number of transitions between different spaces, the greater the induced mental activity” (Newman, 2018). In addition, other studies have determined that the “hippocampus is responsible for spatial orientation, stress assessment and the first stages of memory” (Akil, 2018) so that further development of this part of the brain caused by movement and the increase in orientation capacity is closely related to a greater ability to remember. Thus, a direct relationship between movement and memory is established at an anatomical level.

The materialization of this design dynamic would lead, first of all, to the creation of corridors and other transition elements, both interior and exterior, seeking a wide variety of stimuli through perspective changes inside and outside the building, the sensation of depth or of closeness, narrowness or breadth, and the achievement of variable and reconfigurable routes that can be adapted to the physical capacities of its users, taking into account their vital stage. A study from the University of Aalborg, Denmark, has determined that “we move more slowly through smaller openings, compared to larger ones” (Djebbara, 2018) even when it is possible to pass through them in both cases with complete ease. This can help to understand not only the conceptual relevance of these spaces as symbolic elements, but also to understand them as pieces that really cause an involuntary reaction in individuals in order to make scientifically founded project decisions.

Secondly, having defined the horizontal plane of routes and transitions, it is necessary to intensify the diversity of stimuli by working with the third dimension. We can speak of a topographic architecture, an architecture that is not understood as a superposition of layers separated by the structure, but as a three-dimensional continuum where the built interior has a direct connection with the material reality of the exterior. The world is not the abstraction of Euclidean space where length, width and height are defined independently, but the complexity of reality would lead us three-dimensional displacement

Fig. 2.4 Kunsthal Museum, Rem Koolhaas (1992)

Source: designboom.com

Fig. 2.5 Salk Institute, Louis Kahn (1965)

Source: flickriver.com to consider a fluid movement where verticality is treated with the same intensity as the ground plane. Height changes related to the motor skills of the users must be introduced, trying to reinforce them in the case of the elderly, and to develop them in the youngest. This procedure may involve the appearance of ramps, sections of stairs, somewhat steeper level jumps or even overlapping of these elements on the same route to cover all the possibilities of the people who are going to use it.

“

Stairs are not necessarily a bad thing for connecting floors, but (they are) for moving, stopping, gathering, playing with the nature of the setting. (…) stairs provide complex series of movements and opportunities that are not only attractive to children. (...) Regarding the stairs: children find it difficult not to jump when walking. They also like to go up and down stairs. Most of their life is related to movement in three dimensions. But in schools, children are condemned to live on the ground. Schools must be made up halfway of stairs. Walking through rooms, as in the work of Akio Suzuki, Bruce Nauman, and Ulrich Eller, can be experienced as receiving various resonances that can occur in conversation. A variety of stimuli are needed to achieve and maintain physical and mental balance.” (Metzger, 2018: 77) The brain in its infant stage is eager to experience complex forms of displacement where it puts into practice the person’s motor skills to control themselves. Shrinking disables this ability and is a neural detriment that should be avoided.

Coinciding with Pallasmaa, architecture is not an object, it is an action, it must provoke the action. That is why the encouragement to movement for Neuroarchitecture is a fundamental element, and its application in sick people or people with cognitive deficiencies shows even more clearly the advantages for their recovery. “While healthy people show control over the body in the form of deliberate and intentional movements and courses of action, sick people lose control over the space around them through the loss of the ability to control their own body.” (Metzger, 2018: 68) Understanding that many of these disorders are shown to different degrees in the majority of the population, becomes essential to transfer these tools to all people. This could provoke an improvement in the quality of life through the built space as opposed to an architecture that compresses and limits intentional and deliberate movements.

“Physical experiences are always spatial experiences, which create a space through the active movement of the body. We are the space in which we move; spatial relationships are originally and existentially connected to us.” (Metzger, 2018: 180)

Source: archdaily.com

b. Spatial approach - The corner

“The corner is a paradise that ensures us the things we value most: immobility. It is the safe place, the place next to my immobility. The corner is a kind of half box, part walls, part doors”

(Gaston Bachelard, 1958: 136)

Determined an overall structure that encourages movement through the building, what should the interior spaces be like to achieve the diversity of stimuli and contrasts that we need? Metzger affirms that “only in the protective corners of the house are we in a position to experience the safety of childhood” (Metzger, 2018: 147), and this is precisely the treatment that should be given to each room: look for a side that can be a place of protection and that can also stimulate the cognition of the occupant.

It is crucial to first understand the refuge space as one that is capable of reducing our level of anxiety and stress and hibernating our body’s defense systems to free our senses. According to geographer Jay Appleton, “we judge the aesthetic beauty of natural landscapes based on whether or not their conditions are favorable for our survival. The same idea has been extended to built environments that offer a sense of security. (...) Contemporary people’s preferences for spaces are due, in part, to the extent to which those spaces would have conferred an advantage on our ancestors in terms of survival” (Jay Appleton, geographer). Knowing the importance of the subconscious in our perception, these spaces must respond to forms and systems that allow the individual to control the whole in order to feel protected. Spaces that are “magic triangles, erotic zones, narrow spaces and blind alleys in houses (...) Man’s place in the world offers protection only in the form of a corner. This shape is synonymous with the peaked roof that is characteristic of every simple cabin and offers the same kind of protective space as an open book.” (Metzger, 2018: 146).

Consequently, the architectural theory could fall into the design of a space close to that of the hermit, where to move away from the relationship with a convulsive outside world for seclusion and meditation. However, studies in neuroscience have shown that, despite the fact that space should confer this sense of security, it should not suppress the entire relationship with the outside: a stay that causes prolonged isolation will cause damage to the brain, loss of orientation ability and loss of the sensation of depth perception, thus being blind for long distances (Akil, 2018).

Secondly, the space should ensure a wide variety of stimuli so that, although in many cases they are not consciously perceptible, they make our brain keep all its capacities active. Neuroscientists have carried out a multitude of studies focused on the impact of spatial configuration on the user, the essential conclusions of which will be detailed below, grouped into the concepts of spatial volumetry, interior-exterior relationship, and shape.

Studies related to the built interior volume have focused on the impact that the height of the space can have on user behavior. It has been proven that “relatively high ceilings can trigger thoughts related to freedom, while lower ceilings can trigger thoughts related to confinement” (Joan Meyers-Levy & Rui Zhu, 2007). More specifically, people located in a relatively high space have a higher success rate in activities that require a relational and creative process that involves discerning information from different sources and finding links between various ideas. On the contrary, spaces with comparatively lower ceilings induce greater ease in the development of more concrete and mechanical actions, which do not require making decisions, but executing simple orders.

Source: celia-hannes.tumblr.com

Besides, the relationship with the outside takes on special interest through openings that in some way emphasize or focus the landscape. Numerous studies confirm that, despite being inside a built environment, everything that evokes the sensation of controlled external nature causes a positive effect “in terms of aesthetic and affective response (Ulrich 1983), psychological wellbeing (Ulrich 1979 ), psychophysiological effects (Ulrich 1981) and stress recovery (Ulrich and Simons 1986)” (Chen-Yen Chang and Ping-Kun Chen, 2005).

Despite the proven effectiveness of this direct contact with the natural environment as opposed to the urban or human environment, more recent studies are questioning whether the origin of this response is the plant mass itself. According to Alex Coburn “The naturalness of architecture is not just about plants and shrubs, but rather the properties of architecture to develop in a more natural way. The greater contrast and gradual growth, the more natural (a space feels) without explicit nature” (Coburn, 2018). While nature develops incrementally and with great contrasts in shapes and materials, the built environment tends towards abrupt scale changes and monotony, properties considered artificial and unstimulating by this study.

In addition, the relative position of the user within the space must not be fixed, but changes that alter the internal perspective and also the external vision must be motivated. That is why having a variety of visual perspectives can contribute to cognitive performance. Therefore, sufficient space to allow changing the orientation of the seat and its views can be beneficial (Nanda, 2018).

Lastly and directly related to the natural properties mentioned above, “completely straight spaces and sharp angles also influence their users, perceiving them as threatening through a process in the amygdala that can trigger tension or aggressiveness” (Ochoa, 2019). The curved or sinuous shape, on the other hand, tends to reduce anxiety and brings benefits at the neurological level, although it is a field in which much work remains to be done to specify less general and more measurable formal parameters.

The tools offered by neuroscience to conceive a sensorially positive space present a first approximation that can help make crucial decisions in the project. However, the complexity of architecture makes more detailed studies necessary, dealing with elements such as visual harmony, order and entropy, the hierarchy of spaces, the two remaining dimensions beyond height, and all of them related with the function of each space and with the characteristics of the different user models.

Source: architectureanddesign.com.au

c. Object approach - Furniture

“The home cannot be produced at once. It has a temporal dimension and continuity, and is a gradual product of the adaptation to the world of the family and the individual.”

(Pallasmaa, 2016: 18)

A stimulating architectural space is also made up of the objects that it contains and that significantly vary their perception. However, studies in neuroscience seem to have focused solely on formal or material qualities in a generic way, both for space and for its objects, as demonstrated by the research cited in the previous section regarding the naturalness of forms (Coburn , 2018) against sharp angles and visually sharp elements (Ochoa, 2019). This section will focus first on outlining the theoretical proposals of sensitive architecture, from where a series of elements are raised and whose symbolic component is of some interest; and, secondly, the opinion provided by neuroscientists on the decoration of spaces, and in particular on the importance of abstract art, will be presented.

First, “the meaning of objects in our remembering process is the reason why we like to have familiar or unique objects around us. They expand and reinforce the realm of memories (...) Few of the objects we possess are strictly necessary for utilitarian reasons: their function is psychological and social” (Pallasmaa, 2016: 22). Therefore, the space in which we live must be capable of housing all those objects that are an extension of our own consciousness and identity. The rooms through which we move should be in continuous evolution, adapting to the existential reality of each one, and therefore cannot be planned as finished and static elements. This need for personalization, related to the control that we unconsciously seek over our environment, is manifested more intensely in the presence of other people or in larger groups. Neuroscience considers essential the ability of spaces to be reconfigured and adapt their elements (Nanda, 2018), emphasizing that the furniture, whatever it is, must allow the change of position according to the feelings of each user. This “feeling” has a subconscious component that should be analyzed in future studies to find patterns that facilitate the design of the different pieces.

Pallasmaa, in turn, focuses the reflection on those elements that he considers essential from a symbolic perspective. He criticizes that the fireplace, culturally considered as a piece for the meeting, has become an aesthetic object that has rejected the fire itself.; for him, the door has disappeared as a border by becoming transparent, an object that “neither hides nor protects”; the bed, which could be considered the culmination of the protective space, a space of intimacy and seclusion, has become a

Source: palavracomum.com

Source: mere stage, depriving the home of its ultimate place of refuge; and finally, the table, like the fireplace, has ceased to be the center of the house, the sacred place (Pallasmaa, 2016: 105). It would be necessary to analyze these elements from neuroscience to test and analyze their impact.

Secondly, neuroscience has shown that contemporary interest in abstract art goes beyond being just a fad. It has been discovered that when exposing ourselves to a representative work of art, our brain interprets the actions and spaces depicted with a certain degree of reality, thus activating the parts of the brain linked to it: if we find ourselves in front of a painting where a forest is represented , our brain interprets that we are in a certain way in a similar forest; in the same way that when seeing a sculpture where a certain movement is described (Fig. 2.9), the neural activity linked to the execution of this movement increases (Freedberg and Gallese, 2007). This is caused by the presence of mirror neurons in our nervous system, the origin of our ability to imitate and responsible for activating empathic processes in the face of observed actions. “Seeing images of a hand reaching to grasp an object or grasping it firmly activates the motor representation of grasping in the observer’s brain” (Freedberg and Gallese, 2007) (Fig. 2.10).

However, abstract art shows us, as is well known, a figurative distortion of reality, elements that in themselves we cannot directly relate to anything we are used to. Consequently, while the representation of a landscape, a portrait or a still life produces localized activity in a specific area of the brain, abstract art induces action in different regions in a kind of search for relationships with what is observed, that is, abstract art is not interpreted by a specialized area of the brain, but by a multitude of them with different functions. “If we extract the signal produced by abstract art from those generated by representational art of various kinds, we observe zero activity” (Aviv, 2014).

The great variety of stimuli that the brain receives from abstract art means that it does not respond in a predictable or stereotypical way, but rather new neural relationships and new synaptic pathways are established, activating parts of the nervous system that under normal conditions would not have interacted with each other. The impact that the presence of this type of pieces in the environment can have at a cognitive level must be studied from the sensory need posed by Neuroarchitecture, as an element of the project.

Fig. 2.12 Moss Wall, Olafur Eliasson (1994)

Source: nationalgeographic.co.uk

Fig. 2.13 Final wooden house, Sou Fujimoto (2008)

Source: dezeen.com

d. Material approach - Beyond the visual

“While the visual architecture of pure form tries to stop time, the multi-sensory and tactile architecture of matter makes the experience of time comforting, healing and pleasurable.”

(Pallasmaa, 2016: 55)

The current image culture considers everything that is attractive from a visual perspective to be positive and beautiful. The aesthetic value system would have been radically limited to a monosensory and reductionist perception, which denies the body’s ability to feel all the stimuli of reality.

Architecture is no stranger to its time and therefore also seeks the impressive and the visually novel. Consequently, “it has been emptied of all deep mental meaning; only the desire for aestheticization remains. In today’s obscenely materialistic world, the poetic essence of architecture is simultaneously threatened by two opposing processes: functionalization and aestheticization” (Pallasmaa, Habitar: 9). This has resulted in the use of materials under a purely retinal criterion or subject to assembly processes without taking into account the totality of perception considered essential by neuroscience. The material cannot be defined solely by its color, its shape, its tones. Rather, it is necessary to talk about its texture, its temperature to the touch, its aging, its resonance, even the fragrance it gives off. The materials that make up the architectural space must not only be chosen to be seen, but the designer must know their impact on the rest of the broad sensory spectrum mentioned above.

The perception created from the translation of all the elements into concrete could lead to the coldness of the space. The greyish color of this material can only imitate the formal appearance of more sensorially stimulating materials. Wood, brick and ceramics, with their imperfections resulting from more artisanal work, cannot be assimilated to their replacement in concrete and it has been shown that those elements with a greater natural character help cognitive development and especially recovery from medical procedures (Browing, 2018). The most relevant studies carried out to date in this regard have reflected three essential material qualities that have a direct cognitive impact: texture, noise dispersion or amplification, and color.

We maintain direct contact with the horizontal plane of the ground, and we know that texture changes when walking barefoot cause a direct stimulus to the cerebral cortex, responsible for thought (Metzger, 2018: 78). For this reason, the sensation produced by the materials when moving over each of them must be studied. At the same time, the roughness of

Fig. 2.14 Rainbow Panorama, Olafur Eliasson (2011)

Source: producción propia

Fig. 2.15 Reality machines, Olafur Eliasson (2015)

Source: olafureliasson.net the wall to the touch and its irregularities should be discussed, studying in particular those surfaces likely to come into contact with the user and establishing tactility criteria that ensure a wide variety of stimuli.

On the other hand, the acoustic properties of materials play a fundamental role in the perception of spaces. The reverberations on the other side of walls of different composition should achieve an “optimal noise level design: neither too high to cause anxiety, nor so low that it causes concern” (Nanda, 2018). According to neuroscientist David Kirsh, it would even be positive to achieve the sound effect of being inside a cathedral (Kirsh, 2018).

Third, the color of the surrounding materials can cause mood changes. “The human eye perceives color as a stimulus in the form of light and the brain processes that perception, evoking feelings and emotions” (Billmeyer and Saltzman, 1981). Neuroscience distinguishes three variables in the composition of color: hue, tone and chroma (Gelineau, 1981) and different empirical investigations have shown that cold colors (blues and greens) cause greater relaxation and a sensation of spatial amplitude; while colors with warm shades (reds and oranges) cause greater excitement or anxiety and make us perceive a smaller space (Nelson, Peleck and Foster, 1984; Whitfield and Wiltshire, 1990; Crowley, 1993). More recent studies have come to affirm that there is a relationship between the effect of color on our subconscious and gender, with the feminine being more susceptible (Putrevu, 2003: 47).

In short, the set of characteristics that make up the reality of the chosen materials must seek to establish contrasts and achieve a great diversity of stimuli that breaks with the monotony of the environment. “Architecture as a place of return, realization and departure can only appear as a space with sensory effect, if a variety of stimulating materials and surfaces come together” (Metzger, 2018: 142)

Fig. 2.16 Glasses that enhance red light, Andersen y Magan (2018)

Source: anfa.com

Fig. 2.17 Room for one colour, Olafur Eliasson (1997)

Source: guggenheim-bilbao.esu

e. Inmaterial approach - The intangible

“The most intense and pleasant home experience occurs when rain hits the roof during a strong storm, magnifying the feeling of warmth and protection.”

(Pallasmaa, 2016: 34)

The properties of space do not depend solely on the physical state of the objects that make it up or their materials, but are subject to environmental parameters that vary their qualities and have a direct effect on our perception. In this section, the impact generated by light, sound and relative humidity can be described through neuroscience.

Light, beyond its condition as a metaphorical element, is a physical magnitude that in architecture is determined by two parameters: color, and therefore its wavelength, and the origin and sifting to which it is submitted, that is, the intensity with which it affects the spaces. Light plays a central role in our circadian rhythm of activity and sleep, so designing spaces with this in mind will help alleviate stress and anxiety for its occupants. Light with low-intensity wavelengths (cold colors) activates the blue light detection protein responsible for keeping us awake and in a greater state of arousal, while high-intensity wavelengths (warm colors) typical of the candle or orange light help to fall asleep better than industrial lights (Panda, 2018). Other studies show that using chrome glass that increases the proportion of red light in daylight can reduce fatigue (Andersen and Magan, 2018) (Fig. 2.16). On the other hand, “irregularity in the entry of light is preferable” (Andersen and Magan, 2018), that is, instead of having only continuous windows that flood the space with direct light, elements should be placed that break up the incidence on surfaces, thus promoting changes in the position of the penumbra and light throughout the day, adding a new stimulus vector.

Secondly, in relation to acoustic stimuli, the architectural programs that need to encourage the concentration of their occupants, such as libraries, offices, educational spaces, etc. can take into account that “the sound of a stream flowing is the best way to hide the noise of the environment” (Browning, 2018). The curious reason proposed by the study that demonstrates this is the very evolutionary need to discern the sound made by a clean water source from the rest of the noise in the environment. Architecture can indistinctly pose the natural or artificial disposition of this sound in space.

Finally, the environmental control systems of a space must take into account that the optimum values of humidity are between thirty and sixty

Source: archdaily.com percent, as well as the concentration of carbon dioxide that must not vary between five hundred and fifty nine hundred and fifty parts per million (Lindberg, 2018).

Architecture must therefore be aware of the psychological implications of all the decisions that are adopted at the different scales of a project in order to position them for the benefit of its occupants.

Source: anfa.com

In order to control a single variable, the rest of the elements are simplified by eliminating the color and using the same neutral window module, varying only the height

f. The change of scale - Neurourbanism

“A landscape wounded by the actions of man, the fragmentation of the urban landscape and the insensitive buildings are all external landmarks of an alienated and shattered interior space.”

(Pallasmaa, 2016: 71)

According to a 2010 study, city dwellers are at 38% higher risk of developing mental disorders (39% higher risk of affective disorders, 21% higher risk of anxiety disorders) than those in the rural areas, raising the risk of suffering from schizophrenia to more than double (Adli, Fingerhut, Brakemeier & Gomez-Carrillo, 2017). In this same study, the simultaneity of two processes is analyzed as the most probable cause: high population density and social isolation; both related to submitting to an uncontrollable environment full of stimuli that overwhelm our nervous system, subjecting it to a state of constant stress.

Neuroarchitecture should therefore propose a leap in scale to address the problems of the city as a whole. Most of the aforementioned studies focus on understanding our reactions to the interior of built spaces, within the buildings themselves. However, despite the fact that we spend less time outdoors, the urban environment would also require the implementation of principles in line with our cognitive capacity. The city should be understood as an encapsulated space, as a set of corridors and stairs that is part of the total built environment and not merely the consequence of accumulating buildings. Pallasmaa agrees on the need to promote the configuration of a complex city in its reading (Pallasmaa, 2016), and therefore full of contrasts and stimuli, as a response to an excessively functionalized city.

Canadian neuroscientist Robin Mazumder, who is especially interested in the urban issue, states that “tall buildings are oppressive, they freeze behavior and have a negative effect on the probability of recovery” (Mazumber, 2018) (Fig. 2.19), calling into question the contemporary urban model and especially the American model from which his analyzes are based. Virtual reality allowed him to create an immersive simulation where participants responded to diverse urban spaces. The variable that was modified in one context or another was the height of the buildings, causing different cerebral and metabolic reactions that were recorded by the measuring equipment and that allowed the aforementioned conclusions to be reached.

Another of the starting points of this branch can be the reinterpretation of the studies carried out around neuromarketing. This discipline focuses on the impact of advertising, especially outdoor advertising, on pedestrians and techniques to reorient the consumption of specific products. This ability to alter behaviors could be used to generate a city that connects with citizens instead of distorting or manipulating their sensoriality for propaganda purposes.

The discoveries commented on the different lower scales may have a similar application in the context of the city, but Neuroarchitecture must take a qualitative leap to understand the new interrelationships that occur in a more open space. The mentioned study can be a methodological starting point for future experiments that can include, in addition to simulations, other tools such as eye-tracking, or gaze tracking system, to detect those points in the urban context that arouse the interest of our subconscious.

“There will come a day – very soon perhaps – when it will be recognized what our great cities lack: silent, vast and spacious places for meditation; places with long glazed galleries for rainy and sunny days, where the noise of cars and the cry of merchants do not reach, and where a more subtle etiquette would even prohibit the priest from praying aloud; buildings and constructions that as a whole they will express what is sublime about meditation and the distance from the world. (...) We want to translate ourselves into stones and plants, we want to walk by ourselves when we walk through those galleries and those gardens” (Nietzsche, Friedrich 1882)