Your Brain on Architecture

In Fast Company. Or really its about constructing a space. A genius loci or spirit-of-the-place that influences us. Yes, it is different when one walks down a busy street vs a woodland glade.

" ... In the 1950s Jonas Salk was working on a cure for polio in the basement of a Pittsburgh laboratory. Stymied and discouraged, he went to Assisi, Italy and wandered around a 13rd-century monastery. There, among the cloisters, he felt his mind unwind. Fresh lines of pursuit came to him, including the breakthrough that led to the vaccine....

Salk believed that the architecture of the place had influenced his mind. Mentioned is the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture in San Diego. Also mentions a SciAm article on room design and creativity.

Of course this influences us while we are being creative. It also influences our clients in understanding our work and the customers who will ultimately interact with our designs. I sit in a building with cathedral ceilings with the sun streaming in and I do feel and expansion of creativity. In the enterprise we explored the influence of shopping context design ... how aisles, lighting, fixtures, packaging could help determine the moment of truth engagement and results.
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