How Rooms and Architecture Affect Mood and Creativity
Affect of Rooms and Architectue The Gardens of Mt. Assisi Monasteri
Jonas Salk claimed that it wasn’t until he left his basement lab in the States and went to clear his head in a monastery in Assisi that he became able to solve the puzzle of polio. He thought that Assisi’s colonnaded walks, serene architecture and hillside views had provided the right mental conditions for the necessary creative and intellectual leap. This story is from the April edition of Scientific American, in an article on neuroscience by Emily Anthes titled “How Room Designs Affect Your Work and Mood.” Salk was so certain of the effect of Assisi’s architecture on his work that he later hired Louis Kahn to build the now famous Salk Institute (photos below), and the influence of Assisi is clearly visible – the simple, harmonious colonnades, the long vistas, the pale buttery colour of the stone. Some of the scientific findings in the article confirm what we might already have guessed, while others are more surprising. Lighter, brighter spaces with full-spectrum lighting increase alertness and help guard against depression and, later in life, against cognitive decline. Conversely, rooms intended mainly for relaxation should feature darker colours, dimmer lighting, fewer sharp edges on furniture and bookshelves (these activate the part of the brain that alerts us to danger), and more carpeting. Lower ceilings improve performance in detail-oriented tasks, whereas high ceilings encourage abstract creative thought. Views of nature, particularly distant trees and green space, are proven to significantly aid in creativity, concentration and memory (and in combatting ADD in children). It’s worth reading the whole article
It seems obvious that architecture would affect human behaviour and capabilities, and it’s exasperating that in the West we so often have to reinvent the wheel, usually by employing science to restore such knowledge – in this case architectural and kinaesthetic knowledge – that has been developed over centuries and even millennia in other places. I’m thinking of the carefully worked-out design of monasteries and churches as places that generate inspiration and contemplation for example, or the genius of Japanese house design. But if we have to reinvent the wheel, then I guess we have to reinvent the wheel. In the 60s and 70s the field of environmental psychology made a lot of headway in this area, and now after a long lull, interest in the effect of architectural design on human behaviour seems to be on the rise again. The BC Cancer research building in Vancouver was built with these ideas in mind.
Scientific American Mind, April 22, 2009 How Room Designs Affect Your Work and Mood Brain research can help us craft spaces that relax, inspire, awaken, comfort and heal By Emily Anthes In the 1950s prizewinning biologist and doctor Jonas Salk was working on a cure for polio in a dark basement laboratory in Pittsburgh. Progress was slow, so to clear his head, Salk traveled to Assisi, Italy, where he spent time in a 13th-century monastery, ambling amid its columns and cloistered courtyards. Suddenly, Salk found himself awash in new insights, including the one that would lead to his successful polio vaccine. Salk was convinced he had drawn his inspiration from the contemplative setting. He came to believe so strongly in architecture’s ability to influence the mind that he teamed up with renowned architect Louis Kahn to build the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., as a scientific facility that would stimulate breakthroughs and encourage creativity. Architects have long intuited that the places we inhabit can affect our thoughts, feelings and behaviors. But now, half a century after Salk’s inspiring excursion, behavioral scien -tists are giving these hunches an empirical basis. They are unearthing tantalizing clues about how to design spaces that promote creativity, keep students focused and alert, and lead to relaxation and social intimacy. Institutions such as the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture in San Diego are encouraging interdisciplinary research into how a planned environment influences the mind, and some architecture schools are now offering classes in introductory neuroscience. Such efforts are already informing design, leading to cutting-edge projects, such as residences for seniors with dementia in which the building itself is part of the treatment. Similarly, the Kingsdale School in London was redesigned, with the help of psychologists, to promote social cohesion; the new structure also includes elements that foster alertness and creativity. What is more, researchers are just getting started. “All this is in its infancy,” says architect David Allison, who heads the Architecture + Health program at Clemson University. “But the emerging neuroscience research might give us even better insights into how the built environment impacts our health and well-being, how we perform in environments and how we feel in environments.” Higher Thought Formal investigations into how humans interact with the built environment began in the 1950s, when several research groups analyzed how the design of hospitals, particularly psychiatric facilities, influenced patient behaviors and outcomes. In the 1960s and 1970s the field that became known as environmental psychology blossomed.
Affect of Rooms and Architecture/The Stalk Institute
“There was a social conscience growing in architecture around that time,” says John Zeisel, a Columbia University–trained sociologist who, as president of Hearthstone Alzhei mer Care, specializes in the design of facilities for people who have dementia. Architects began to ask themselves, Zeisel adds, “‘What is there about people that we need to find out about in order to build buildings that respond to people’s needs?’ ” The growth of the brain sciences in the late 20th century gave the field a new arsenal of technologies, tools and theories. Researchers began to consider “how can we utilize the rigorous methods of neuroscience and a deeper understanding of the brain to inform how we design,” says Eve Edelstein, a visiting neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, and adjunct professor at the New School of Architecture and Design, also in San Diego. Now research has emerged that could help illuminate Salk’s observation that aspects of the physical environment can influence creativity. In 2007 Joan Meyers-Levy, a professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota, reported that the height of a room’s ceiling affects how people think. She randomly assigned 100 people to a room with either an eight- or 10-foot ceiling and asked participants to group sports from a 10-item list into categories of their own choice. The people who completed the task in the room with taller ceilings came up with more abstract categories, such as “challenging” sports or sports they would like to play, than did those in rooms with shorter ceilings, who offered more concrete groupings, such as the number of participants on a team. “Ceiling height affects the way you process information,” Meyers-Levy says. “You’re focusing on the specific details in the lower-ceiling condition.”
Affects of Rooms and Architecture/Stalk fountain
Affects of Rooms and Architecture/Stalk institute/ La Jolla,CA
Because her earlier work had indicated that elevated ceilings make people feel physically less constrained, the investigator posits that higher ceilings encourage people to think more freely, which may lead them to make more abstract connections. The sense of confinement prompted by low ceilings, on the other hand, may inspire a more detailed, statistical outlook—which might be preferable under some circumstances. “It very much depends on what kind of task you’re doing,” Meyers-Levy explains. “If you’re in the operating room, maybe a low ceiling is better. You want the surgeon getting the details right.” Similarly, paying bills might be most efficiently accomplished in a room with low ceilings, whereas producing great works of art might be more likely in a studio with loftier ones. How high the ceiling actually is, Meyers-Levy points out, is less important than how high it feels. “We think you can get these effects just by manipulating the perception of space,” she says, by using light-colored paint, for instance, or mirrors to make the room look more spacious.
Green play space may be especially beneficial for students with attention disorders. Landscape architect and researcher William Sullivan of the University of Illinois and his colleagues studied 96 children with attention deficit disorder (ADD). The scientists asked parents to describe their children’s ability to concentrate—say, on homework or spoken directions—after the kids engaged in activities such as fishing, soccer and playing video games in which they were exposed to varying amounts of greenery. “The parents reported that their children’s ADD symptoms were least severe after they’d been in or observing green spaces,” says Sullivan, whose results were published in 2001.
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