Why are architects so interested in neuroscience? The answer is simple, even seemingly trivial,
nothing new. Answer: "Because the discoveries made in the last decades have shown that space
affects our way of thinking, of behaving, in short of being alone or in groups. It has an impact on
human society." What a revelation, one might say. We have always known it. Most would agree
that raising children in an empty room or a squalid environment will lead them to behave differently
from those raised in warm surroundings and stimulating environments. But all this is not enough,
obviously, if we are here to discuss it. Indeed, things are not as they seem. The point is that, over
the last thirty years, architects, but even more so decision makers and governments, have stopped
believing that the shape of the city might affect society. Well, at least two discoveries made in the
last three decades deliver in the hands of the architects a useful key: a means to open a heavy door.
Once this door has been opened we must re-take responsibility for the care of those living with us:
our societies. In order to do this, the only thing left for architects to do is put their art to good use
and build and re-build.
So what are these two important discoveries in the world of neuroscience?
The first comes from research carried out by Antonio Damasio on the role of emotions in the
development of rational thought. A book, which he published in 1994 under the title “Descartes'
error”, summarizes a long clinical research, starting with the historical case of Phineas Gage, and
shows incontrovertibly that a person deprived of the stratified memory of emotions is no longer able
to think rationally. All the emotions that we deposit in our memory, related to events and actions,
are crucial in the process of evaluation of the different options that we have to continually weigh in
order to make choices. When deprived of a “history of emotional experiences” we can no longer
decide: we go into a loop, and the process is repeated ad infinitum without producing any results.
The other discovery, which is profoundly connected to the previous one, and not only for architects,
was made by group led by Giacomo Rizzolati at the University of Parma in the early nineties. What
happened? The group was studying a particular class of motor neurons that are activated both when
grasping an object with the hand and when simply observing that object, the so-called “canonical”
neurons. During one of those experiments the neurophysiologists in Parma noticed that some
neurons were activated not only during the grasping of an object by the monkey but also when the
monkey watched the experimenter performing the same action. That moment marked the beginning
of a discovery that many consider among the most important in an absolute sense in the last
decades. The discovery of “mirror” neurons. It turned out that even humans have these
particular neurons and that therefore our brain tends, quite unconsciously, to produce simulations
of body movements it perceives. Not only of body movements but also of movements experienced
by others, that we witness through our senses. The empathetic dimension resides in the involuntary
mechanism produced by the functioning of these particular neurons.
Therefore, based on these two fixed reference points, what changes for the architect and for those
who make decisions about the quality of the built environment? We must first of all guarantee
everyone’s right to emotional memory, that is to say allow all growing children and people who
inhabit a given space to gather and stratify a significant amount of emotional experience in
connection with architectural space. Moreover, an important part of the overall emotional heritage
is stored in the memory of emotions linked since childhood to body movements. It is an elementary
code, widely shared, that can be used to create an empathic connection between users and
architectural space. Thus it is possible to colour a place emotionally, making it unique and
recognizable: furthermore, thanks to those emotions it can reveal the essence of the experience that
one has in a particular place. Indeed it is largely accepted that the emotions that reach one’s
consciousness produce a feeling. In architectural terms this would allow us to attribute a particular
feeling to a space, perhaps linked to the purpose for which a place is built in the city. But there is
more: one could create a harmony between what everyone expects from experience and the feeling
that the place evokes, through empathy.
ROOMS, our collective research, aims to evaluate “in the field” the emotional perception of people
in relation to places of everyday life: airports, hospitals, schools and meeting halls. Very simple
tests will provide the information on the basis of which the initial working hypotheses will be
verified.
Davide Ruzzon
Vittorio Gallese
Translation by Igor Folca-Nash and Maurizio Bartolini