Buildings, Beauty, and the Brain: A Neuroscience of Architectural Experience

Abstract

A burgeoning interest in the intersection of neuroscience and architecture promises to offer biologically inspired insights into the design of spaces. The goal of such interdisciplinary approaches to architecture is to motivate construction of environments that would contribute to peoples' flourishing in behavior, health, and well-being. We suggest that this nascent field of neuroarchitecture is at a pivotal point in which neuroscience and architecture are poised to extend to a neuroscience of architecture. In such a research program, architectural experiences themselves are the target of neuroscientific inquiry. Here, we draw lessons from recent developments in neuroaesthetics to suggest how neuroarchitecture might mature into an experimental science. We review the extant literature and offer an initial framework from which to contextualize such research. Finally, we outline theoretical and technical challenges that lie ahead. and architecture promises to offer biologically inspired insights into the design of spaces. The goal of such interdisciplinary approaches to architecture is to motivate construction of environments that would contribute to peoples' flourishing in behavior, health, and well-being. We suggest that this nascent field of neuroarchitecture is at a pivotal point in which neuroscience and architecture are poised to extend to a neuroscience of architecture. In such a research program, architectural experiences themselves are the target of neuroscientific inquiry. Here, we draw lessons from recent developments in neuroaesthetics to suggest how neuroarchitecture might mature into an experimental science. We review the extant literature and offer an initial framework from which to contextualize such research. Finally, we outline theoretical and technical challenges that lie ahead. ■ Disciplines Bioethics and Medical Ethics | Neuroscience and Neurobiology | Neurosciences

Neural correlates of appreciating natural landscape and landscape garden: Evidence from an fMRI study

“…Taken together, the involvement of these brain regions supported our hypothesis that the perception and appreciation of landscape gardens may rely on the common neural areas that are active in the perception and appreciation of other visual stimuli, including the combined participation of visual perceptual processing, cognitive processing, and rewarding emotional experience (Berlyne, ; Cupchik, ; Wang, Mo, Mo, et al, ; Zhang et al, ; Zhang, Lai, He, Zhao, & Lai, ); this finding may support the framework of experiencing art to the neuroscience underlying our perception and appreciation of architecture (Shimamura, ), suggesting that the perception and appreciation of architecture engage the sensorimotor, knowledge‐meaning, and emotion‐valuation systems (Chatterjee, ; Coburn et al, ).…”

“…This neuroimaging evidence is consistent with the theoretical model of architectural appreciation, which suggests that there are three systems contributing to the perception and appreciation of architecture. The sensorimotor system is related to sensory processing (e.g., visual perception) and motor responses (e.g., visuo‐spatial exploration and motivation for approaching or avoiding a structure), the knowledge‐meaning system conducts signals pertaining to personal experience and individual differences during processing, and the emotion‐valuation system generates feelings, emotions, and rewarding experience (Coburn, Vartanian, & Chatterjee, ). As landscape gardens (e.g., the landscape gardens of Suzhou, China) constitute a type of architecture that is composed of natural elements (Zhang, Tang, He, & Chen, ), the manner in which people experience landscape gardens and the cortical differences between the perception and appreciation of natural landscapes (naturalness of landscapes) and landscape gardens (artificiality of landscapes) are two core questions addressed in this study.…”

Sensory-motor brain dynamics reflect architectural affordances

“…Traditionally, investigations of architectural experiences are phenomenological - the description of phenomena in how experience gives access to a world of space and time (14, 22–24). Such descriptions find specifically movement of the individual to be an expression of a holistic experience of architecture (14, 22), linking the nature of movement to architectural experiences (25). Transitions in architecture depend on voluntary movement and thus a prerequisite for any transit is a goal, which in turn calls for action planning.…”

Psychological responses to natural patterns in architecture

“…The design of our physical surroundings -including landscapes and buildings -can have a meaningful impact on psychological states and wellbeing (Adams, 2014;Coburn, Vartanian, & Chatterjee, 2017;Cooper & Burton, 2014;Hartig, 2008;Joye, 2007b). The psychological benefits of naturalness, in particular, are widely documented in the environmental psychology literature (for a review, see Bowler, Buyung-Ali, Knight, & Pullin, 2010).…”