As building occupants, we've all experienced spaces that influence our minds, bodies, and overall well-being.

Neuroscience has yielded insights for designing spaces that enhance mood, performance, and experience.

Studies linking environmental exposures with health emphasize the built environment’s role in health.

Policy initiatives are laying the groundwork for a future where we can improve brain health through design.

As a child, I often found myself in places where my brain felt overstimulated and agitated. Like church.

Although my experience when visiting grand cathedrals as a tourist is very positive, as a small child in the middle of a crowded congregation, I found that the architecture seemed to overwhelm my body and mind. Sitting on a hard bench was most uncomfortable. In close proximity to a stranger, I had to be still. There was no space for fidgeting.

The ritual dictated when to stand, kneel, and sit. Whether sitting or standing, I couldn’t see anything but the person’s head in front of me.

Chants and songs were similarly prescribed. To self-regulate, I curled my knees up to create a cocoon, my own microenvironment. I plugged my ears. Incense invaded my space. I coughed dramatically and pulled my shirt over my mouth and nose, prompting looks of disapproval.

What was happening in my brain, I wondered? Science would later yield evidence that the intense sensory overload and loss of environmental control were indeed causing me anxiety. I started imagining places I would design someday that made me feel good, not bad. And so began my career journey toward a field which did not then exist, but does today: Neuroscience for Architecture.

Around 2000, a convergence of factors enabled the field of Neuroscience for Architecture to emerge. Groundbreaking studies revealed that rats living in more stimulating environments developed more new neurons........

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