By Andréa de Paiva

NeuroArchitecture has been proving that the buildings and cities we design affect people’s brain and behavior in a deeper way than originally thought by architectural psychology or environmental psychology. The built space can generate emotions that change our mental states, impacting directly on decision making, creativity, attention, socialization, memory and learning, and also wellbeing and happiness. Having said that, do we know what emotions our buildings and cities are evoking?

By Andréa de Paiva

Perception has been the subject of studies in psychology and neuroscience for a long time. Understanding how the senses capture information about the world outside the body, such as images, sounds, smells, textures, temperatures, flavors and how the brain interprets all of this, helps architects and designers make better decisions in their projects. After all, one of the most discussed subjects when it comes to perception is: it is relative [1]! That is, different factors can influence how we perceive the same reality [2]. In the case of architecture and design, how can NeuroArchitecture contribute to the understanding of how different sensory characteristics of environments can affect users’ perceptions?