
Neuroarchitecture books
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Atmospheres: Architectural Environments. Surrounding Objects
Peter Zumthor · 2006
Quality architecture to me is when a building manages to move me. What on earth is it that moves me? How can I get it into my own work?<br/>-Peter Zumthor<br/>Winner of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture 2009, Swiss architect Peter Zumthor is considered to be one of the most extraordinary and controversial architects working today.<br/>Atmospheres is a poetics of architecture and a window into Zumthor’s personal sources of inspiration. In nine short, illustrated chapters framed as a process of self-observation, Zumthor describes what he has on his mind as he sets about creating the atmosphere of his buildings: images of spaces and buildings that affect him are every bit as important as particular pieces of music or books that inspire him.<br/>From the composition and “presence” of the materials to the handling of proportions and the effect of light, Atmospheres enables the reader to recapitulate what really matters in the process of house design. Peter Zumthor describes what really constitutes an architectural atmosphere as "this singular density and mood, this feeling of presence, well-being, harmony, beauty...under whose spell I experience what I otherwise would not experience in precisely this way."<br/>Delving deep into the mind and process of one of the centuries greatest architects, Atmospheres is a must-read for all aspiring and established architects as well as any individuals interested in architecture.

The Experience of Architecture
Henry Plummer · 2016
<b>A thought-provoking consideration of how architecture, from a doorknob to a city plan, can influence human behavior</b><br><p>How does the experience of turning a door handle, opening a door from one space into another, affect us? It is no wonder that the door, one of the most elemental architectural forms, has such metaphorical richness. But even on a purely physical human level, the cold touch of a brass handle or the swish of a sliding screen gives rise to an emotional reaction, sometimes modest, occasionally profound.</p> <p>This book aims to understand how these everyday acts are influenced by architectural form, a concept that is vital for all architects to grasp. It considers how specifically built elements and volumes, taken from a wide array of buildings and settings around the world, can affect our powers of decision. From hand-carved stairs in Greek villages to free-floating catwalks, from the elegant processional steps of Renaissance Italy to Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterly manipulation of form, all provide very different experiences of stepping from one level to the next, and all affect our experience of that space.</p> <p>Seamlessly integrating text and image, each chapter focuses on a different aspect of our daily interactions with architecture, looking at stairs, floors and paths, moving interior spaces, perception and perspective, transparency and the relationship between a building and its setting. This book is not just for architects and designers engaged in the production of space, but for all those who seek a richer understanding of their place in the built world.</p>

The Image of the City
Kevin Lynch · 1964
<b>The classic work on the evaluation of city form.</b><p>What does the city's form actually mean to the people who live there? What can the city planner do to make the city's image more vivid and memorable to the city dweller? To answer these questions, Mr. Lynch, supported by studies of Los Angeles, Boston, and Jersey City, formulates a new criterion—imageability—and shows its potential value as a guide for the building and rebuilding of cities. The wide scope of this study leads to an original and vital method for the evaluation of city form. The architect, the planner, and certainly the city dweller will all want to read this book.</p>

Humanise A Maker's Guide to Building Our World
Thomas Heatherwick · 2023
<p><b>'<i>Humanise </i>is a masterwork. It's quietly furious, impassioned, rigorous and forensic in all the right doses. It leaves me very hopeful indeed about how things could go from here' ALAIN DE BOTTON</b> <p><b>In this manifesto for change, one of the world's pre-eminent designers explores how buildings and cities around the world lost their soul - and what we can do about it.</b> <p>Thomas Heatherwick shows how design has a profound effect on our mental and physical health, the climate, as well as the peace and cohesion of societies. He shows how a flawed idea of utility and 'efficiency' has engulfed our towns and cities and hardened into a form of bland minimalism. But it doesn't have to be this way: there are other ways to build - with the power to lift our spirits, engage and connect us. <p>Heatherwick draws on his own work, the ideas of other experts in the field, and recent advances in neuroscience and cognitive psychology to offer both a case against the inhumanity of modernist design and a rallying cry to everyone to imagine the world anew. Looking through his eyes, we take in places around the world, old and new, famous and obscure, that can sap the life out of us - or nourish our senses and our psyche. <p><i>Humanise</i> is a tautly argued provocation and an urgent call-to-arms to make the world around us a far better place for everyone to live. <p><b>'This book is a super accessible guide as to why we shouldn't put up with soulless buildings and how we might change that' GRAYSON PERRY</b> <p><b>'Thomas Heatherwick brings a velvet sledgehammer to the way we think about buildings and how they change our lives. In simple, elegant words, he demands that we put people first. Not developers, politicians or architects. I want to live in the kind of city Heatherwick imagines! Vive la revolution!' Simon Sinek, Optimist and <i>New York Times</i>-bestselling author of <i>Start with Why</i> and <i>The Infinite Game</i></b></p>

Environment-Behavior Studies for Healthcare Design
Suining Ding · 2022
<p>Environment-Behavior Studies for Healthcare Design explains how environment-behavior (EB) studies can contribute to healthcare design research and explores how evidence-based theories can be applied and integrated into the healthcare design practice.</p> <p>Drawing on EB theories and the latest research in environment-behavior studies, this book shows how the healthcare environment can positively impact patients' and caregivers' well-being and healthcare organization's efficiency by modifying environmental attributes, such as space configuration, color, lighting, signage, acoustics, and artwork. It addresses a range of healthcare facilities including children's hospitals, long-term care, acute care and outpatient care facilities, and uses a range of evidence-based design research methods, such as interviews, focus groups, observations, surveys and space syntax. The author also explains how research evidence and evidence-based design can be integrated into healthcare design more cohesively in a redefined design process. This book provides a solid conceptual structure that informs a clear map for understanding the EB theories and their applications in healthcare design.</p> <p>This research guide for healthcare design helps students, academics, designers and architects reconsider how to create environments that support patients' healing and well-being whilst considering efficiency and safety.</p>

At Home with Autism Designing Housing for the Spectrum
Kim Steele · 2016
At Home with Autism: Designing Housing for the Spectrum introduces readers to conditions and aspirations of adults on the autism spectrum that demand a new approach to how we provide, locate, design and develop homes in which they live. The book argues that there is no singular stellar residential model, just as there is no singular prototype of autism. Grounded in an extensive array of research sources, the book identifies resident-focused quality of life goals, and profiles design guidelines directed to those goals. The book implores those involved in housing design, production and policy to expand their exposure to what is possible, what is desirable, and to direct their efforts towards expanding residential choices for those on the spectrum.

Designology How to Find Your PlaceType & Align Your Life with Design
Sally Augustin · 2019
<p><b>A simple guide to creating spaces at home and work that align with your personality type and support your goals—with the help of science.<br><br> Discover a new paradigm:</b> Are you an adventurer or a visionary? A maverick or a maven? <i>Designology</i> makes design personal through environmental and design psychologist Sally Augustin’s 8 personality “Placetypes” that characterize the different ways we can relate to the space around us.<br><br><b>Personalize everything:</b> What color should you paint your child’s bedroom? How do shapes and patterns influence how you think in a space? How do room dimensions influence you psychologically? <i>Designology</i> answers all these questions and more with practical how-to advice and real-world examples sure to help make your house a happier place to be.<br><br><b>Move forward with your design projects:</b> Bust through the design paralysis that affects so many by applying verified science-based insights. <i>Designology</i> will help you regain control of your design-related efforts with suggestions customized to your personality and space-related needs.<br><br><b>Find out what really matters:</b> <i>Designology</i> teaches you how smells, textures, and other factors in your home influence your happiness. It shows you how your personality and ideal design styles are really related.<br><br> Readers will learn about:</p><p>· How to sound-scape a place whether they need to concentrate or think creatively</p><p>· How to use scents in their home to help their family feel healthier</p><p>· What to read into their spouse’s desktop landscape</p><p>· How to use paint to make their living room feel more comfortable</p><p>· And much more!</p><p><br><b><b>Take on your intimidating design tasks with confidence using this practical, personalizable how-to guide.</b></b></p>

Environmental Psychology for Design
Dak Kopec · 2012
How does a room affect an occupant's behavior and well-being? How does a building influence its residents' health? <i>Environmental Psychology for Design</i>, 2nd Edition, explores these questions with an in-depth look at psychosocial responses to the built environment. Awarded the 2006 ASID Joel Polsky Prize, the first edition served as an introduction to the discipline of environmental psychology and inspired readers to embrace its key concepts and incorporate them into their practice. This 2nd edition continues to analyze the interaction between environments and human behavior and well-being, while exploring how individual differences related to age, gender, and cultural background impact that interaction. The book provides many proactive initiatives designed to minimize stress and maximize user satisfaction, helping readers to create more comfortable spaces that will both satisfy the needs of the intended occupants and expand the scope of design.

Healing Spaces The Science of Place and Well-Being
Esther M. Sternberg MD · 2010
<p><b>“Esther Sternberg is a rare writer—a physician who healed herself...With her scientific expertise and crystal clear prose, she illuminates how intimately the brain and the immune system talk to each other, and how we can use place and space, sunlight and music, to reboot our brains and move from illness to health.”—Gail Sheehy, author of <i>Passages</i></b><br><br>Does the world make you sick? If the distractions and distortions around you, the jarring colors and sounds, could shake up the healing chemistry of your mind, might your surroundings also have the power to heal you? This is the question Esther Sternberg explores in <i>Healing Spaces</i>, a look at the marvelously rich nexus of mind and body, perception and place.<br><br>Sternberg immerses us in the discoveries that have revealed a complicated working relationship between the senses, the emotions, and the immune system. First among these is the story of the researcher who, in the 1980s, found that hospital patients with a view of nature healed faster than those without. How could a pleasant view speed healing? The author pursues this question through a series of places and situations that explore the neurobiology of the senses. The book shows how a Disney theme park or a Frank Gehry concert hall, a labyrinth or a garden can trigger or reduce stress, induce anxiety or instill peace.<br><br>If our senses can lead us to a “place of healing,” it is no surprise that our place in nature is of critical importance in Sternberg’s account. The health of the environment is closely linked to personal health. The discoveries this book describes point to possibilities for designing hospitals, communities, and neighborhoods that promote healing and health for all.</p>

Places of the Heart The Psychogeography of Everyday Life
Colin Ellard · 2015
<b>Library of Science Book Club selection</b><br> <b><i>Discover</i> magazine "What to Read" selection</b><br> <br> "A really great book." --<b>IRA FLATOW, <i>Science Friday</i></b><br> <br> "One of the finest science writers I've ever read." --<i><b>Los Angeles Times</b></i><br> <br> "Ellard has a knack for distilling obscure scientific theories into practical wisdom." --<i><b>New York Times Book Review</b></i><br> <br> "[Ellard] mak[es] even the most mundane entomological experiment or exegesis of psychological geekspeak feel fresh and fascinating." --<b>NPR</b><br> <br> "Colin Ellard is one of the world's foremost thinkers on the neuroscience of urban design. Here he offers an entirely new way to understand our cities--and ourselves." --<b>CHARLES MONTGOMERY</b>, author of <i>Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design</i><br> <br> Our surroundings can powerfully affect our thoughts, emotions, and physical responses, whether we're awed by the Grand Canyon or Hagia Sophia, panicked in a crowded room, soothed by a walk in the park, or tempted in casinos and shopping malls. In <i>Places of the Heart</i>, Colin Ellard explores how our homes, workplaces, cities, and nature--places we escape to and can't escape from--have influenced us throughout history, and how our brains and bodies respond to different types of real and virtual space. As he describes the insight he and other scientists have gained from new technologies, he assesses the influence these technologies will have on our evolving environment and asks what kind of world we are, and should be, creating.<br> <br> <b>Colin Ellard</b> is the author of <i>You Are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon, but Get Lost in the Mall</i>. A cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo and director of its Urban Realities Laboratory, he lives in Kitchener, Ontario.<br>

Welcome to Your World How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives
Sarah Williams Goldhagen · 2020
<br> <br> <p>One of the nation's chief architecture critics reveals how the environments we build profoundly shape our feelings, memories, and well-being, and argues that we must harness this knowledge to construct a world better suited to human experience</p> <p>Taking us on a fascinating journey through some of the world's best and worst landscapes, buildings, and cityscapes, Sarah Williams Goldhagen draws from recent research in cognitive neuroscience and psychology to demonstrate how people's experiences of the places they build are central to their well-being, their physical health, their communal and social lives, and even their very sense of themselves. From this foundation, Goldhagen presents a powerful case that societies must use this knowledge to rethink what and how they build: the world needs better-designed, healthier environments that address the complex range of human individual and social needs.</p> <p>By 2050 America's population is projected to increase by nearly seventy million people. This will necessitate a vast amount of new construction--almost all in urban areas--that will dramatically transform our existing landscapes, infrastructure, and urban areas. Going forward, we must do everything we can to prevent the construction of exhausting, overstimulating environments and enervating, understimulating ones. Buildings, landscapes, and cities must both contain and spark associations of natural light, greenery, and other ways of being in landscapes that humans have evolved to need and expect. Fancy exteriors and dramatic forms are never enough, and may not even be necessary; authentic textures and surfaces, and careful, well-executed construction details are just as important.</p> <p>Erudite, wise, lucidly written, and beautifully illustrated with more than one hundred color photographs, Welcome to Your World is a vital, eye-opening guide to the spaces we inhabit, physically and mentally, and a clarion call to design for human experience.</p>
