skip to main content
Your Cosentino Shop
Sign In
Join as a Pro
History of Houzz
  • PHOTOS
    KITCHEN & DINING
    • Kitchen
    • Dining
    • Outdoor Kitchen
    • Kitchen Islands
    LIVING
    • Living Room
    • Family Room
    • Home Theatre
    • Sunroom
    • Fireplace
    • Study Room
    BATHROOM
    • Bathroom
    • Laundry
    • Powder Room
    • Small Bathroom
    BEDROOM
    • Bedroom
    • Kids Bedroom
    • Nursery
    • Master Bedroom
    • Storage & Wardrobe
    KERB APPEAL
    • Exterior
    • Driveway
    • Carport
    • Garage
    • Entry
    OUTDOOR
    • Garden
    • Courtyard
    • Balcony
    • Deck
    • Patio
    • Pool
    • All Outdoor
    MORE IDEAS
    • Granny Flat
    • Home Office
    • Home Gym
    • Staircase
    • Home Bar
    • Wine Cellar
    • View All
  • FIND PROFESSIONALS
    BUILDING & RENOVATION
    • Architects
    • Home Builders
    • Building Designers
    • Design & Construction
    DESIGN & INTERIORS
    • Interior Designers & Decorators
    • Home Stylists & Property Staging
    • Painting & Wallpaper
    • Carpet & Flooring
    • Shutters, Blinds & Curtains
    • Furniture & Home Decor
    • Artists & Artisans
    GARDEN & LANDSCAPING
    • Landscape Architects & Designers
    • Landscape Contractors
    • Garden & Landscape Supplies
    • Arborists & Tree Services
    OUTDOOR & EXTERIOR
    • Pools & Spas
    • Decks, Patios & Structures
    • Fencing & Gates
    • Driveways & Paving
    • Stone, Pavers & Concrete
    • Cladding & Exterior Contractors
    • Roofing & Gutters
    • Blacksmiths & Welders
    KITCHEN & BATHROOM
    • Kitchen Designers & Renovators
    • Bathroom Designers & Renovators
    • Kitchen & Bath Fixtures
    • Tile, Stone & Benchtops
    • Joinery & Cabinet Makers
    HOME SERVICES
    • Lighting
    • Heating & Air Conditioning
    • Fireplaces
    • Windows
    • Doors
    • Staircases & Balustrades
    • Wine Cellars
    SYDNEY
    • Architects in Sydney
    • Bathroom Renovators in Sydney
    • Builders in Sydney
    • Interior Designers in Sydney
    • Kitchen Renovators in Sydney
    • Landscapers in Sydney
    MELBOURNE
    • Architects in Melbourne
    • Builders in Melbourne
    • Bathroom Renovators in Melbourne
    • Landscapers in Melbourne
    • Interior Designers in Melbourne
    BRISBANE
    • Architects in Brisbane
    • Builders in Brisbane
    • Landscapers in Brisbane
    • Bathroom Renovators in Brisbane
    • Cabinet Makers in Brisbane
    • Fencing in Brisbane
    PERTH
    • Landscapers in Perth
    • Tilers in Perth
    • Bathroom Renovators in Perth
    • Kitchen Renovators in Perth
    • Cabinet Makers in Perth
    • Architects in Perth
    View All Pros View All Services
  • STORIES
    STORIES FROM HOUZZ
    • Houzz Tours
    • Kitchens
    • Bathrooms
    • More Rooms
    • Renovating
    • Building
    • Architecture
    • Interior Design
    • Gardens
    • Eco Living
    • Lifestyle
    • News Stories
    • How to Use Houzz
    HOUZZ RESEARCH
    HOUZZ TV
  • ADVICE
    HOUZZ DISCUSSIONS
    • Design Dilemma
    • Before & After
    • Polls
    • Kitchens
    • Living Rooms
    • Bathrooms
    • Gardens
    • Renovating
    • Home Decorating
    • Exterior
    • Flooring
    • Building a home
Architecture
Architecture
Neuroarchitecture: The New Movement at the Forefront of Design
Top Ideabooks
Neuroarchitecture: The New Movement at the Forefront of DesignAnd the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize Goes To... A French DuoFrom Victorian Butcher's Shop to Show-Stopping Contemporary Home11 Architects on Being a Woman in 2021
Appears in
Latest from Houzz
See also
Australian StyleAdvice from ArchitectsArchitectural Details

Neuroarchitecture: The New Movement at the Forefront of Design

Neuroscientists reveal why we love texture, curves and symmetry and explain how our brains respond to different spaces

Julia Fairley
Julia FairleyMay 27, 2018
Houzz editorial team. I love design and architecture that is thoughtful, sophisticated and champions an element of the unexpected. Before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts at UNSW and becoming a journalist, I studied interior architecture. For over a decade I have interviewed inspiring creative minds from around the world to write about design in its many different forms. Recently, I have also become an accidental gardener, to everyone's surprise.
More
Print
Embed
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Have you ever felt uneasy or, worse, trapped within a room or building? Perhaps it was a long, narrow corridor without a discernible exit, or maybe it was a dimly lit room with a low ceiling or an oppressive feel. Better yet, have you ever felt a surge of awe and wonder when looking at or walking through a building? If you’ve visited any ancient architecture, from Rome’s Pantheon to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, chances are you know the feeling well.
Poliform Australia
Ancient builders and architects instinctively understood what lies at the heart of neuroarchitecture, even if they lacked a word for it or didn’t have the tools to measure it. Our reactions to the built environment date back to the beginning of humanity. But what is new is that we can now measure how and begin to understand why we react the way we do. This is where neuroarchitecture comes in.
Smart Design Studio
What is neuroarchitecture?Neuroarchitecture stands at the crossroads of two very different disciplines: neuroscience and architecture. Using our growing knowledge of how our brains work, it aims to account for our responses to the built environment.

“What’s distinct about neuroarchitecture is that we’re now approaching a time when our understanding of brain function has progressed to the point where we can start to say sensible things about its relationship with architecture and design,” says Dr Colin Ellard, an author and professor of cognitive neuroscience in Canada, who measures how our brains and bodies respond to spaces and places.
Smart Design Studio
What’s all the hype about?
Almost all the past movements and ‘isms’ in architecture and design have ultimately been informed by an aesthetic style or the philosophies that drive them. Neuroarchitecture, on the other hand, is less about architecture and more about the people who embody it. This cutting-edge discipline within neuroscience is forging ahead to reveal answers about our complex relationships with design and architecture. Imagine being able to explain why we react to different spaces the way we do – this is why neuroarchitecture is a big deal.

“One of the really exciting things about this science is that we now have an incredibly strong set of tools that we can use to measure physiological responses to place,” says Dr Ellard.

Read more stories about architecture
Luigi Rosselli Architects
How are our responses to buildings measured?
Along with other neuroscientists, Dr Ellard conducts studies in virtual reality (VR) settings and real spaces, measuring people’s physiological responses. “The advantage of VR is that we can build any kind of model that we want, but the disadvantage is that no matter how good the rendering might be, people know that it’s not real and I suspect that their responses are just pale reflections of how they respond to real places,” he says.
Individual Design & Construction
“But in both kinds of settings, we rely on a set of traditional psychological tools (that is, we ask lots of questions and administer many different kinds of tests) and on small body-worn sensors that measure heart rate, body temperature and something called skin conductance, which is just a measure of sweat glands and tells us about arousal,” says Dr Ellard.

“In some studies we also measure brain waves (using simple visors that can even be worn on the street) and eye movements (using a set of glasses that contains a small a camera that watches your pupil).”
Rebel Walls
How do our brains and bodies react?
Special cells found in the hippocampal region of our brains are tuned in to geometry and how our spaces are organised. Whenever you enter a room, home or any environment, these cells are busy navigating and storing spatial information in the form of cognitive ‘maps’.

As an experiment, tune into a memory of how it felt to be in a space where you were uncomfortable and wanted to leave. Did your heart pump faster, your breathing quicken? That’s the hypothalamus in your brain telling your adrenals to release adrenaline and cortisol, the ‘stress’ hormones.

Biophilic Design: The Rise of Wellness-Enhancing Architecture
Decus Interiors
Were you edgy, alert? You can thank these stress hormones for enriching your blood with oxygen due to your fast breathing. Did you feel skittish or ready to burst into action? That’s your blood vessels constricting to divert this oxygen-rich blood to your muscles, which would have tensed in preparation to ward off the perceived threat (in this case, propel you out of that room or building as quickly as possible).

Our physiological state has a huge impact on our health, so considering many Australians spend 90 per cent of their time indoors, ‘healthy’ homes, workplaces and buildings are paramount to our wellbeing.
Herbst Architects
But people respond to design individually, right?
Correct. There is no universal reaction to a singular space and neuroscientists take this into account. To complicate matters, our initial reaction to a space is often different to our subsequent reactions after that space becomes familiar. Add to this our experiences within these spaces and our reactions are affected even more – for example, your brain will respond very differently to the same room if you were hired in it versus fired in it. Dr Ellard also suspects different demographics – such as age, cultural background and possibly gender – might dictate our preferences.
BASWA acoustic North America
“We’ve seen how one’s level of physiological arousal varies as one moves from room to room,” says Dr Ellard. “Walk into an impressive large, open space and your level of arousal will generally increase. But that’s an initial response to a space you’ve never seen before. What’s probably much more important, and about which we know much less, is how the design of a home might influence you over the months and years of your life. That’s a much more complex and nuanced question and harder to get at with our probes and our VR models.”
Luigi Rosselli Architects
What are we unconsciously seeking in a home?
Not everything on our wish list for the perfect home springs from biology, of course, though many do and it is these that neuroarchitecture examines. “Essentially, when we look at how humans respond to built spaces, we are really looking at a very basic biological problem called ‘habitat selection’,” says Dr Ellard.

“In the further reaches of our evolutionary history, the problems we’d want to overcome would be much the same as those of a fox finding a good spot for a burrow or a bird looking for a good location for a nest. What’s the spot that is going to maximise our resources and minimise the likelihood that we’ll become prey? Modern humans, and happily so, most often don’t have to think explicitly about those problems as much anymore, but those kinds of factors still exert pressure on our preferences.”
Louise Walsh Interior Design & Decoration
What do people find pleasing in experiments?
Because personal preferences play an undeniable part, Dr Ellard cautions against the idea of a one-size-fits-all approach and instead focuses on common themes.

“We prefer locations in a space where we experience both high refuge (protection of some kind) and high prospect (the ability to sense our surroundings, to know what’s going on, to have vistas),” he says. “Even something like the perennial popularity of a wingback chair might be related to this. In home settings, small alcoves set into larger spaces are often the places that people gravitate towards.”
Herbst Architects
Dr Ellard also highlights the importance of being able to inhabit different types of spaces within our homes.

“As we’ve shown in some of our work in virtual reality, people might like a grand, open space when they’re socialising but a small, enclosed space when they’re dealing with a problem or with difficult emotions,” says Dr Ellard.

Dr Ellard’s research has also revealed that we are strongly affected by building facades. “We have discovered that symmetric facades cause participants to indicate higher levels of pleasure and attraction,” he says.
Woods & Warner
Dr Ellard has also shown that we gravitate towards facades that are complex, interesting or ‘textured’ and shrink away from ones that are plain, monotonous or unvaried. In fact, when Dr Ellard’s students walked past a long, dark glass store frontage in one of his experiments in Lower Manhattan, their moods and arousal decreased while their pace increased in an unconscious effort to accelerate past.

“I think it’s probably because of our craving for information,” he suggests. “For human beings, information is critical to survival and complexity signals information. I think it may be as simple as that.”
Ike Kligerman Barkley
Dr Ellard believes his findings on ‘textured’ building facades can also be applied to our interiors. “In fact, we’ve studied this quite comprehensively in virtual reality settings and we do find similar results to those for the exteriors in field work,” he says. If you’ve never found minimalism appealing, this could be one reason why.

Could You Live Like a Minimalist?
Inlinebuilding & Construction Management
Dr Ellard is not alone in his discoveries about neuroarchitecture. Roger Ulrich, a professor of architecture in Sweden, has found that hospital patients with views of nature were discharged earlier than those surrounded by walls. Scientists at the Salk Institute in the US have collaborated with architects and are unearthing fascinating findings about how different types of light in buildings (for example, blue-based morning versus red-based afternoon light versus artificial light) affects us cognitively. And Oshin Vartanian, a professor of psychology in Canada, has observed we respond positively to curvature in architecture.

“At a very simple level, it may just be that curved surfaces (compared, say, to jagged ones) are less likely to harm us on contact – again suggesting an ancient adaptive origin for these preferences – but I think there’s more to it than that,” says Dr Ellard.
造園・庭造り専門店【新美園】
“We also like curved walkways, for example, possibly because they generate something that environmental psychologists call ‘mystery’ – the idea is that we like to be in situations of what you might call ‘unveiling’. We like settings where we are lured inward by the promise of further information. Again, information-seeking is a key here,” says Dr Ellard.

“One of the most robust findings in environmental psychology has to do with the profound impact of nature settings on psychology, physiology and health. Something as modest as an indoor plant or even a picture of plants can exert an effect.” And when you consider that before buildings, human beings lived in natural settings – where our primitive instincts were first honed – it makes perfect sense.
What do architects think?
Dr Ellard says architects’ responses to neuroarchitecture have been “wildly mixed” since the discipline started gaining momentum a decade ago. “With the formation of organisations like the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture – which is a group of scientists and architects who hold a biennial meeting to communicate findings and advance the field – I think that most architects have at least a passing familiarity with the notion that we might use principles from neuroscience to advance design,” says Dr Ellard.
“There are many who are quite excited about the possibilities for a field that is just now beginning to define itself. I think there are others (and I’ve certainly heard from and met a few of them) who are much more sceptical – sometimes perhaps even a bit worried that this movement might represent a step backwards into a reductionist, perhaps even Corbusian view of architecture that has previously been tried and found wanting.”

Le Corbusier: The Modernist’s Lasting Influence on Today’s Interiors
Decus Interiors
How can I approach neuroarchitecture at home?
According to Dr Ellard, the key lies in understanding yourself and how your proposed design will impact the way you feel.

“Your personality will, to some extent, dictate your preferences,” says Dr Ellard. “For example, if you’re a strong introvert, you’re probably not going to be happy in a large, open-plan environment.”

Dr Ellard also encourages people to immerse themselves in the designs they are looking to reproduce, and to hone their awareness of how they feel in these spaces.
Architects EAT
“And if you’re looking for a home, think about your past experiences with residential spaces carefully to get clues as to what might work for you,” he says.

“I can apply my sensors to tell me whether your brain waves suggest that you’re relaxed and happy, whether your skin conductance response suggests that you’re aroused or bored, but human beings are generally fairly good at being able to sense that about themselves. It takes lots of patient and mindful attention to your feelings, and some trust in yourself.”


Tell us
What spaces have made you feel happy, calm or excited and which do you avoid? Tell us your experiences in the Comments, share this story and join the conversation.

More
Find a local architect on Houzz
Print
Embed
Facebook
Twitter
Email
See 35 comments
Explore Related Topics
Architecture
Read Related Stories
And the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize Goes To... A French DuoAnd the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize Goes To... A French Duo
By Mitchell Parker·30
Awards
From Victorian Butcher's Shop to Show-Stopping Contemporary HomeFrom Victorian Butcher's Shop to Show-Stopping Contemporary Home
By Georgia Madden·1
Project Of The Week
11 Architects on Being a Woman in 202111 Architects on Being a Woman in 2021
By Houzz AU·27
For Pros
Narrow Homes: Architects Reveal How to Maximise What You've GotNarrow Homes: Architects Reveal How to Maximise What You've Got
By Georgia Madden·2
Small Homes
Skylark Cabin: A Luxury Escape Nestled in Open GrasslandsSkylark Cabin: A Luxury Escape Nestled in Open Grasslands
By Georgia Madden·7
Project Of The Week
How Will Design Shape the ‘New Normal’?How Will Design Shape the ‘New Normal’?
By Kate Burt·12
For Pros
Narrow Home? The Design Tricks You Need to Know AboutNarrow Home? The Design Tricks You Need to Know About
By Georgia Madden·4
Small Homes
New Look for an Old Charmer: A Time-Warp Bungalow is TransformedNew Look for an Old Charmer: A Time-Warp Bungalow is Transformed
By Georgia Madden·4
Project Of The Week
Texture, Warmth and Coastal Touches for a Renovated Family HomeTexture, Warmth and Coastal Touches for a Renovated Family Home
By Georgia Madden·10
Project Of The Week
So You Want Louvre Shutters and Windows? Here's the LowdownSo You Want Louvre Shutters and Windows? Here's the Lowdown
By Georgia Madden·7
Windows
Houzz Tour: A Mid-Century Makeover Honours its Legendary DesignerHouzz Tour: A Mid-Century Makeover Honours its Legendary Designer
By Janet Dunn·12
Houzz Tours
Houzz Tour: A Knockdown-Rebuild With an Elegant Hamptons VibeHouzz Tour: A Knockdown-Rebuild With an Elegant Hamptons Vibe
By Georgia Madden·10
Houzz Tours
Paddo Terrace: From Dark, Skinny and Rundown to a Modern StunnerPaddo Terrace: From Dark, Skinny and Rundown to a Modern Stunner
By Georgia Madden·4
Project Of The Week
The Malvern Garden House: A Joyful Celebration of Nature + FamilyThe Malvern Garden House: A Joyful Celebration of Nature + Family
By Georgia Madden·2
Project Of The Week
Rhythmic House: A Calm and Considered Redesign of a Small HomeRhythmic House: A Calm and Considered Redesign of a Small Home
By Georgia Madden·3
Project Of The Week
People who liked this story also liked
And the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize Goes To... A French Duo
And the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize Goes To... A French DuoFull Story
From Victorian Butcher's Shop to Show-Stopping Contemporary Home
From Victorian Butcher's Shop to Show-Stopping Contemporary HomeFull Story
11 Architects on Being a Woman in 2021
11 Architects on Being a Woman in 2021Full Story
Narrow Homes: Architects Reveal How to Maximise What You've Got
Narrow Homes: Architects Reveal How to Maximise What You've GotFull Story
Skylark Cabin: A Luxury Escape Nestled in Open Grasslands
Skylark Cabin: A Luxury Escape Nestled in Open GrasslandsFull Story
How Will Design Shape the ‘New Normal’?
How Will Design Shape the ‘New Normal’?Full Story
Narrow Home? The Design Tricks You Need to Know About
Narrow Home? The Design Tricks You Need to Know AboutFull Story
New Look for an Old Charmer: A Time-Warp Bungalow is Transformed
New Look for an Old Charmer: A Time-Warp Bungalow is TransformedFull Story
Texture, Warmth and Coastal Touches for a Renovated Family Home
Texture, Warmth and Coastal Touches for a Renovated Family HomeFull Story
So You Want Louvre Shutters and Windows? Here's the Lowdown
So You Want Louvre Shutters and Windows? Here's the LowdownFull Story
  • Australia
  • ABOUT
  • MOBILE APPS
  • PROFESSIONALS
  • BUTTONS
  • FAQs
  • CAREERS
  • ADVERTISE
  • Terms & Privacy
  • © 2021 Houzz Inc.