Neuroscience for Architecture
Tom Albright, Ph.D.

Tom Albright, Ph.D.

The discipline of architecture has deep roots in ancient traditions that seek to optimize human responses to the built environment. While we require that our buildings provide shelter and safety, we also expect them to satisfy our psychological needs. We expect them to inspire and excite us, to promote mental states that lead us to discover, understand and create, to heal and find our way, to summon the better angels of our nature. We expect them to be beautiful. Modern neuroscience takes this quest to a new level. Using a variety of powerful experimental approaches, we can begin to evaluate and optimize the built environment by exploring its influence on brain systems for perception, memory and emotion.