Platt-Whitelaw Architects

Neuroscience research

Neuroscience Could Shape the Future of Public Spaces

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California-based, internationally focused nonprofit studies the intersection of neuroscience and architecture to track human responses to the built environment

By Alison Whitelaw

The last transformative change in architecture began with a simple understanding about the effects building design and construction have on our planet.

This symbiosis between architecture and ecology gave rise to the term ‘sustainable design.’

Over the last two decades, our heightened awareness about the built environment’s impacts on the world around us has led to dramatic changes in design and construction to reduce waste, increase resource efficiency and preserve scarce resources. With it, we’ve been introduced to alternative building materials, LEED standards, net-zero net and restorative strategies and the promise of a more environmentally positive future.

This design philosophy has grown to incorporate the wellness of people as an important component in the health of our planet.

Public agencies were early adopters of sustainable design practices and private industry followed suit.

Now, an emerging field of building design, at the juncture of research on the human brain and design of the built environment, may mean that public agencies again take the lead to implement novel ideas at the frontier of architecture, as informed by neuroscience.

The Intersection of Neuroscience and Architecture

Recent breakthroughs in brain imaging and mapping allow scientists to understand more about how a brain responds to its external environment. This research, focusing on the intersection of neuroscience and architecture, promises to have impacts on the design of countless public buildings, from grade schools and universities to offices, detention facilities, healthcare facilities and military infrastructure.

“I propose that a new knowledge base from neuroscience be developed that will enable designers to respond to cognitive experiences of spaces and places and allow architects to combine these design concepts with adaptive technology for the fabric of cities and buildings,” architect John Paul Eberhard, FAIA, wrote in his 2008 book “Brain Landscape The Coexistence of Neuroscience and Architecture.”

Years earlier, Eberhard was tasked by the American Architectural Foundation, a nonprofit affiliate of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), with researching how architectural settings influence the human experience. The idea stemmed from American medical researcher Dr. Jonas Salk.

Salk, who was working tirelessly to develop a polio vaccine, reached a point where he was intellectually stuck. It was the early 1950s and Salk retreated to the Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi — a 13th- century Franciscan monastery in Assisi, Italy. It was here, he later claimed, that the architectural setting was so stimulating to his imagination that he saw the way forward for developing the Salk (or polio) vaccine.

“The spirituality of the architecture there was so inspiring that I was able to do intuitive thinking far beyond any I had done in the past,” Salk recalled. “Under the influence of that historic place I intuitively designed the research that I felt would result in a vaccine for polio.”


Salk returned to his lab in Pittsburg where he validated his concepts. Based on his experience, he believed that the human brain reacted continuously to its surrounding environment. As such, he opined, architects should have a better understanding of human experience with architectural settings.

Many years later, Eberhard helped lead this charge.

In 2003, Eberhard, with neuroscientists and architects from the AIA San Diego Chapter, co-founded the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA). This partnership brought together two professions to track, inspire and share emerging research to better understand the influences the built environment has on the human brain.


While social and behavioral research of design attributes, “provides an understanding of how humans respond, it does not explain why we have such responses,” Eberhard wrote. However, “neuroscience research could provide a knowledge base with clear evidence of why the occupants of spaces and places are affected by the design of these spaces and places,” he said.

The Impact Designed Spaces Have on the Human Brain

Evidence-based design, the process of building an environment based on scientific research, is now a well-established tool for architects. Although still limited in scope and funding, relevant, evidence-based neuroscience research has begun transforming design standards in healthcare settings and beyond.

Research by perinatologist Dr. Stanley Graven and others has shown that architectural design can affect patient outcomes. Their research showed that traditional, unregulated neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) environments can have harmful consequences on the critical sensory development of preterm neonates.

The study suggests that noise, light and other stimuli interfered with a preterm newborn’s ability to sleep and disrupted their visual and auditory development, which are among the last parts of the human brain to develop during the gestation process and are thus interrupted by a premature birth. Given such, the study concluded, the characteristics of light, sound, touch and connection are critical considerations when designing the NICU environment.

A study from the Boekelheide NICU at Sanford Children’s Hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, used the metrics of periodic breathing and awake time of preterm infants to compare the differences between a conventional, open-bay NICU design to a design prototype that utilized single-family, environmentally controlled rooms. Metrics significantly improved in the prototype, leading to new NICU design standards.

In another example of a study examining how the brain reacts to its surrounding environment, the research of Huda Akil PhD, co-director and professor of the University of Michigan’s Molecular & Behavioral Science Institute, shows that the brain sustains specific physical damage as a result of solitary confinement.

While still in its infancy, this road to discovering how the human brain responds to its built environment may have untold implications and affect how public leaders are expected to lead when overseeing public facilities design and operation.

Research at the intersection of neuroscience and architecture is in its infancy, but results and applications are already happening — albeit gradually — and public leaders should pay attention.

Alison Whitelaw is the founder, and former senior principal, of Platt/Whitelaw Architects, Inc. During her 35 years in architecture, her work focused on designing public and community projects that sustain their users, the community and the natural environment. One of her designs earned the nation’s first Energy Star label for a building and was used as a model for the creation of the LEED rating system. A fellow of the American Institute of Architects, she co-founded Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture.

Neuroscience could shape the future of public spaces

Neuroscience Research Promises to Elevate the Human Experience in the Architectural Environment

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By Alison Whitelaw, FAIA

I propose that a new knowledge base from neuroscience be developed that will enable designers to respond to cognitive experiences of spaces and places and allow architects to combine these design concepts with adaptive technology for the fabric of cities and buildings.

  • John P. Eberhard, FAIA, Brain Landscape (Oxford University Press)

Such was the premise for forming the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) 15 years ago – an institution co-founded by Eberhard. The Academy, a collaboration between architects and neuroscientists, promotes and disseminates emerging research that studies relevant neuronal constraints on sensory performance and how they can they inform the design of the built environment.

This is no small task.

The three pounds of matter we house in our skulls contains as many as 100 billion neurons, each firing five to 50 times a minute, making synaptic connections to other neurons. Experts estimate each human brain contains up to 1,000 trillion synapses. And now, through technology, these connections are trackable.

Technology provides the tools to track brain activity in non-invasive, mobile, real time and is allowing architects, in collaboration with neuroscientists, to augment evidence-based design.

Evidence-based design is now a well-established design tool for architects. It involves gathering relevant intelligence (literature searches, surveys, interviews, observations); setting measurable outcome goals; implementing translational design; and measuring and sharing outcomes.

ANFA seeks to add research protocols and hard science to designers’ evidence-based design knowledge base – possibly offering a new, enhanced design tool.

Through his research and that of others, neuroscientist Fred “Rusty” Gage, PhD concluded the following.

“While the brain controls our behavior and genes control the blueprint for the design and structure of the brain, the environment can modulate the function of the genes and, ultimately, the structure of our brain. Changes in the environment change the brain and, therefore, they change our behavior… architectural design changes our brain and our behavior.”  

Rusty was among other researchers who discovered that exposure to enriched environments increases the birth of new neurons, which is called neurogenesis, and, similarly, that new synapses can be formed (the new neurons can be “programmed”), which is called neuroplasticity.

Neuroscientists are constrained by available funding, and much of the funding currently available goes to study pathology of the brain. We are, however, starting to see studies performed that shed light on how the environment can enhance the performance of healthy brains.

For example, research by Dr. Stanley Graven and others showed that, given the immature and critical state of brain development of preterm neonates, the traditional, unregulated neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) environment can be expected to have harmful consequences on sensory development. 

Noise, light and painful stimuli interfere with the neonate’s visual and auditory development as well as its ability to sleep – a complex process that is absolutely required for normal neuronal migration and brain development.

This study suggests design implications for light characteristics; sound characteristics; and touch and connection in the neonatal environment.

A study from Boekelheide NICU environmental research program at Sanford Children’s Hospital, Sioux Falls, South Dakota went a step further.

Using metrics of periodic breathing and awake time, the study compared a new design prototype of the single-family, environmentally controlled room with the conventional open bay NICU. Metrics significantly improved in the prototype, leading to new standards for NICU design.

Further research may affect how we support healthy brain development with architectural design throughout childhood, not just during pre-term development, since different areas of the brain continue to develop throughout the maturation process. 

In another pioneering study of how the brain reacts to a person’s environment, Huda Akil PhD, professor of the University of Michigan, examined the effects of solitary confinement (as presented at the ANFA Conference in 2018).

Dr. Akil’s research showed physical harm to the brain as a result of solitary confinement. Chronic stress damages nerve cells in the hippocampus, which controls emotion, depression, learning and memory, as well as in the amygdala, which is involved in emotionality and motivation.

Physical outcomes identified from extended solitary confinement included loss of visual abilities (no opportunity for distance vision), loss of depth perception and loss of orientation and wayfinding abilities.

Researchers have also found that unregulated circadian rhythms can contribute toward emotional and physical health issues and learning and memory functions. The study is especially relevant for modern lifestyles full of artificial light, electronic screens, night shifts and more.

One application that attempts to design for balanced circadian rhythms is the ACC Senior Care Center in Sacramento. The U.S. Department of Energy conducted a study, installing a tunable LED lighting system that simulates the daily variations in color and intensity of natural daylight.

The results are notable, with over 40% reduction in depression and behavioral issues in dementia patients (yelling, agitation, crying) and less sleep disruptions.

Wayfinding is another concern in geriatric care and beyond. Through research, we know the brain contains several types of cells controlling this.

Place cells:  were first discovered by John O’Keefe in 1971 through experiments with rats moving freely in mazes. He found that whenever a rat was in a particular location in the maze, a particular hippocampal neuron would fire. Each place in the maze had its own particular corresponding neuron.  However, there was no obvious correlation between the patterns of place cells in the brain and the spatial relationships of the actual places in the maze.

Grid cells:  it was 30 years later that Edvard & May-Britt Moser (Kavli Institute, Trondheim, Norway) identified grid cells which, in effect, organize the relationships of distance and direction between place cells.

So, our brains have a comprehensive positioning system, an inner GPS, a cognitive map. The map consists of hippocampal place cells and entorhinal cortex grid cells, along with head direction cells, border cells and speed cells.

One of the first practitioners to apply implications of wayfinding research to design is John Zeisel in his Hearthstone Alzheimer Care facilities, applying the following design strategies:

  • camouflage and control of dangerous exits;
  • creation of walking paths with clear visual destinations;
  • use of familiar visual cues;
  • recognizable decoration of distinct common spaces; and
  • provision of safe therapeutic gardens.

Additional visual perception research from Tom Albright PhD at The Salk Institute reveals that we have a highly organized visual neuronal system for representing contour orientations. Thus, architecture that reflects closely aligned orientations is perceived and processed more easily through the visual system – more clearly stated, our brains prefer the familiar over the novel…however, visual complexity stimulates brain activity.

So, how do we determine the optimal balance between familiarity and novelty to promote appropriate levels of attention in the built environment?

Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa said, “The profession of architecture has been threatened today by cultural materialism, that buildings are turning into superficial merchandise instead of being settings for meaningful life, that we are losing our position of builders of a humane and cultured world and turning into a service profession that merely fulfills the desires of investors and politicians.”

He concludes that“we need to reestablish the cultural identity and artistic autonomy of architects and that this reform begins with an education that combines scientific knowledge with artistic vision, rational methods with intuition, and rigorous thinking with imagination and empathy.”

Through the efforts of ANFA and researchers around the world, Pallasmaa just might get his way.

Alison Whitelaw is co-founder of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture and led Platt/Whitelaw Architects as owner and principal from 1991 through 2019

Image by Colin Behrens from Pixabay

Intersection: Architecture & Neuroscience

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As students, we travel from one class to the next—one for science, one for math, one for art, and so on. Ultimately, though, it’s the integration of this learning that inspires new ideas and new ways of thinking—an integration happening right now between architecture and neuroscience.

Every new discovery has ripples, as different professions consider the applications of a new discovery. For example, neuroscience researchers taught the world about neurogenesis—the brain’s ability to form new neurons and reorganize synaptic connections from exposure to enriched environments throughout a person’s lifetime.

For architects, what we long suspected about the built environment’s ability to influence our emotions, learning and healing suddenly gained scientific foundation.

How we got here

Not long ago, neuroscientists and architects began reaching out to one another, first through the efforts of architect John Paul Eberhard, FAIA, who was tasked by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to tackle a call to action from medical researcher Jonas Salk. Salk believed that architects should have a better understanding of human experience with architectural settings.

Eberhard’s effort, in collaboration with the San Diego Chapter of AIA and many neuroscientists, culminated in founding the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA), where research is tracked and monitored to understand the influences of the built environment on the human brain. ANFA’s bi-annual conference, held in San Diego, attracts professionals in both fields from around the globe.

Though still limited, relevant neuroscience research has already transformed design standards for neonatal facilities in hospitals. For example, learning that the parts of our brain that control vision and hearing are among the last to develop in the gestation process inspired architects and medical researchers to collaborate to control light and sound levels in neonatal units for premature babies.

Navigating a sea change

Before relevant neuroscience research started to explode, the last sea change for architecture began with an awareness about how building design and construction affect our planet. From that awareness came sustainable design, LEED standards, building code changes and zero net energy strategies.

Soon, the sustainable design philosophy grew to include wellness and an awareness that buildings should make us feel good and promote health and productivity. From there, the design and building profession embraced stewardship of all resources, drawing social, environmental and economic justice into the mix of philosophical intersections.

Simply put, industry professionals started to profess that responsible improvements in architectural and building strategies should care for all people equally as well as for our planet.

As connections between neuroscience and architecture blossom, a new set of intersections is forming, promising another sea change.

Now, architects can draw from established learning and emerging neuroscience research.  

Where to go from here

Neuroscience research is in its infancy. Just as a foundation must be laid before a building can be constructed, we still have much to learn about how human brains experience architectural settings and how we can design to optimize that potential.

But, goodness, what an exciting time to be an architect!