Science and Culture: The brain within buildings.

Any time he has an airport layover, neuroscientist Satchidananda Panda pulls out his cell phone, activates the light-meter app, and starts collecting data. To passersby, it probably looks like he’s trying to get a better mobile signal. But he’s really adding to the array of more than 100,000 data points he’s amassed on light levels in different buildings. Panda, who works at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, is collaborating with architect Frederick Marks, a visiting scholar at the laboratory, to characterize light in the built environment and how it affects people. But the collaborations between neuroscientists and architects, and their aims, extend far beyond the impact of illumination. “How do you build a space that optimizes learning in young children?” asks Thomas Albright, a vision scientist at Salk. “How do you build a hospital that optimizes healing? How do you build a work environment that optimizes efficiency? The hope is that neuroscience can provide some of the answers.” The application of neuroscience to architecture remains in its infancy. No one has yet laid out all of the features necessary to design a building with direct roots in brain science, although architects certainly plan buildings with features meant to promote well-being. But Marks, a founding member and CFO of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA), believes it will eventually be possible for neuroscience and cognitive science to inform design with greater rigor. In the last couple of years, scientists have begun to accumulate data on how our brains process buildings and navigate spaces, by monitoring brain activity or even using virtual reality environments (1–3). Although data thus far are preliminary, such collaborations could help architects judge designs and fashion better ones. “I think we are on the cusp of seeing a lot more interaction between neuroscience and architecture,” says Hugo Spiers, a neuroscientist at University College London.