Abstract
“Primum non nocere”, the guiding principle of medicine credited to Hippocrates, emphatically asks that we first do no harm; our architectural principles must serve the same goal. Yet, too often the form and function of architectural environments neglect to take into account the influence of the built setting on human responses and indeed, on human health itself. How can we assess this influence in an objective, consistent manner? Can we predict what this influence in the early stages of design and before the structure is built? An emerging discipline, one that bridges neuroscience and architecture, is beginning to provide more rigorous methodologies and a growing number of research reports that explores the interaction between brain, body, building, and the environment.
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Acknowledgements
The Neuroscience Design team acknowledges Calit2 and UCSD for supporting the projects described here including the contributions of Gert Cauwenberghs, Michael Chi, Nicholas Echols, Joachim Gossmann, Peter Otto, Jurgen Schulze, Cory Stevenson, Toshiro Yamada, and Lelin Zhang, Thomas DeFanti and Ramesh Roa. We also acknowledge Randy Peterson and Alvaro Velasquez for use of their models, and a generous gift in support of the project from HMC Architects.
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Edelstein, E.A., Macagno, E. (2012). Form Follows Function: Bridging Neuroscience and Architecture. In: Rassia, S.T., Pardalos, P.M. (eds) Sustainable Environmental Design in Architecture. Springer Optimization and Its Applications(), vol 56. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0745-5_3
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