Exploring the influence of the built environment on human experience through a neuroscience approach: A systematic review

The built environment provides a habitat for the most sophisticated mammal in our universe, the human being. Developments in science and technology are forcing us to reconsider the priority of human needs in current theories of architecture and the built environment. Newly developed theories and methodologies in neuroscience have allowed us to improve and deepen our knowledge of human experience in the built environment. The potential of the relationship between neuroscience and architecture for knowledge creation generates an increasing interest in theoretical and methodological approaches to explore this intersection. Thus, a common ground on which to conduct interdisciplinary studies investigating developing and emerging concepts at the intersection must be established. However, few reviews in the literature have systematically examined developing and emerging concepts at the intersection of neuroscience and architecture. The present review aims to examine the existing literature systematically to explain the influence of the built environment on human experience by using approaches from neuroscience by examining the conceptualizations in the field. The study is conducted as a systematic qualitative review that analyzes and synthesizes the developing and emerging concepts that have appeared in the ever-evolving literature. The study concludes with an overall discussion about these concepts as a means of deeply understanding the influence of the built environment on human experience, responses to the environment based on approaches from neuroscience, and their potential for providing further directions for future research.     

Essay competition: A sustainable built environment: the institutional challenges

International Conference, Manchester, UK, 3–4 February 2003     

建筑环境热适应文献综述

给出了以建筑环境热适应为题的详尽文献综述成果。热舒适研究的适应观点认为,人们在真实环境中的热感觉受其以往热经历和文化与技术行为的综合影响。适应模型的一个重要前提是,人不再是给定热环境的被动接受者,而是通过多重反馈循环与人-环境系统交互作用的主动参与者。热适应可分为三种不同的过程——行为调节、生理习服和心理适应或期望。气候室和现场的证据均表明,较慢的习服过程与较为适中的建筑环境中发生的热适应关系不大,而行为调节和期望的影响则大得多。现场证据调查中的一个最重要的发现是空调建筑和自然通风建筑中热舒适反应存在差别,这可能是由人们以往在建筑中的热经历和不同的感知控制度共同导致的。     

城市公园建成环境主观评价模式初探

以湖州余家漾公园为例,对公园建成环境主观评价进行了研究,提出了城市居住区公园SEBE评价的一般模式,从评价与设计过程相结合的角度探索了主观评价如何增进居住区公园设计质量,从而优化居住区公园的设计。     

Climate and built environment studies in universities — an Australian experience

Climate and built environment studies in Australian Universities, especially in the University of Queensland, are reviewed. By using examples of work in the tropical regions of Northern Australia and the Pacific Islands, current programmes which concern building and planning for communities with different cultural backgrounds are explained. A case is made for university studies which emphasise the integration of the natural and social sciences.     

An embodied cognition framework for interactive experience

Interactive art is, by its very nature, concerned with audience experience. The interaction is the essence the meaning of the work to the participant. An embodied cognition framework may be used to explore individual's cognition within a cognitive system while he or she is engaged in an interactive art experience. A cognitive system is identified as a system of interactions between the participants, the tools and the environment engaged in the experience. The aim of this paper is to characterize a person's interactive experience of different artworks using an embodied cognition framework in which bodily interaction, thought and perception of feedback are examined. The protocol analysis used to characterize participant experiences is shown to be an appropriate method for investigating interactivity in the art context. The results showed that identifying the presence of interactions between body and feedback, body and thought and thought and feedback provides an effective way to characterize each artwork experience. We discuss how these modes of interactions can be used as a measure for investigating other interactive artwork experiences in future work.     

Forum A historical context for theories underpinning the production of the built environment

The quest for ‘theory’ in the Building Research & Information special issue ‘Developing Theories of the Built Environment’ (36(3) 2008) needs to be understood within a larger historical and political context. It would benefit from engaging with a rich vein of work on the production of the built environment over the last 30 years. Theory inherently develops in the political context in which it exists; if it fails to do so, it may be dangerous. This commentary traces the intellectual underpinning concerned with understanding the process of change in the built environment, particularly the result of changes in social relations and the social labour process. The production of the built environment is seen as encompassing all the social processes concerned with producing the built environment, built products, buildings and infrastructure, and out of natural resources, whilst consumption is applied to all the processes involved in consuming these, including the well-being of tenants. And between these are situated the processes of exchange, distribution, and circulation, involving complex webs of relations between developers, builders, and landlords and landowners. The challenge is not only to engage and learn from past work, but also to state explicitly what is currently driving the need for a theory (or set of theories).

La quête de la « théorie » dans ce numéro spécial de Building Research & Information consacré aux théories du développement du milieu bâti (volume 36(3), 2008) doit être comprise dans un contexte historique et politique plus large. Elle aurait intérêt à s'appuyer sur les nombreux travaux concernant la production du cadre bâti publiés au cours de ces 30 dernières années. La théorie se développe, de manière inhérente, dans le contexte politique dans lequel elle existe; dans le cas contraire, la situation pourrait devenir dangereuse. Cet article analyse le raisonnement intellectuel sous-jacent concernant la compréhension du processus de changement dans le milieu bâti, notamment les conséquences des changements dans les relations sociales et dans le processus social du travail. La production du cadre bâti est considérée comme englobant tous les processus sociaux liés à la production du cadre bâti, des produits de construction, des bâtiments et des infrastructures et aux ressources naturelles alors que la consommation s'applique à tous les processus qui entrent en jeu dans la consommation de ceux-ci, y compris le bien-être des occupants. Entre ces deux notions, on trouve les processus d'échange, de distribution et de circulation qui font intervenir des réseaux de relations entre promoteurs, constructeurs, bailleurs et propriétaires fonciers. La difficulté ne vient pas seulement du fait qu'il faut tirer profit des travaux et de l'expérience passés mais qu'il faut également expliquer ce qui motive aujourd'hui la nécessité d'une théorie (ou d'un ensemble de théories).

Mots clés: cadre bâti, cadres conceptuels, consommation, processus de travail, cadre politique, production, relations sociales     

Institutional practices and planning for walking: A focus on built environment audits

Built environment audits, part of the “toolbox” for planning multi-modal urban transport systems, are used to evaluate the walkability of streets. Whereas the methodological features of audits have attracted attention from planning research, little attention has been paid to the institutional contexts where audits are developed and used. Drawing on literature on audit culture in contemporary institutions and on expert interviews with audit developers and professionals in Australia and New Zealand working with walking audits, three questions are addressed: Who uses walkability audits? How are they used? What substantive changes emerge from auditing practice? The knowledge of practice of auditing the built environment for walking is underdeveloped. While planners, engineers and advocates consider built environment audits useful in different ways, of concern is the use of audits to rationalise limited resources already devoted to infrastructure for walking, rather than produce substantive changes to the quality of the built environment for walking.     

Photocatalytic oxidation for antimicrobial control in built environment: A brief literature overview

This paper presents a literature review of the status of research on indoor antimicrobial control by photocatalytic oxidation (PCO). The review and discussion concentrate on (a) the PCO disinfection mechanisms; (b) different kinetic experiments and models; (c) the dependence of inactivation rate on some key influencing factors; (d) an overview of various PCO reactors and their application performance reported in the literature. Major conclusions of the overview and recommendations for future work include (a) several reaction pathways of PCO antimicrobial process were reported, but the decomposition of cell after inactivation needs to be fully understood; (b) kinetic experiments were carried out to determine the dependence of antimicrobial reaction rate on some influencing factors. However, the results from different researchers were not comparable to each other, due to differences of reaction parameters and the empirical models used; (c) various types of reactors were adopted to determine the efficiency of PCO on the rate of biological aerosol removal from air flow. There is a need to develop an empirical model for PCO reactor combining the particle dynamics and photocatalytic oxidation for bioaerosols; (d) there is a need to develop more stable and reliable photocatalysts, and further develop performance assessment protocol in both laboratory and the field.     

Considerations for lighting in the built environment: Non-visual effects of light

Light is defined as that part of the electromagnetic spectrum (∼380–780 nm) that gives rise to a visual sensation. Lighting in buildings, whether through use of daylight or by artificial means, is designed primarily for the visual needs of the occupants and their expected tasks within a given space. However, solar radiation, and, depending on spectral output of the source, artificial radiation, has other effects on human physiology and behaviour. Blue light affects the circadian rhythm, mood and behaviour; at shorter wavelengths in the ultraviolet (UV) the detriments of photoaging and sunburn are balanced by the benefits of Vitamin D synthesis.     

Resilience engineering and the built environment

The possible relations between resilience engineering and built environments are explored. Resilience engineering has been concerned with the safe and efficient functioning of large and small industrial systems. These may be described as built systems or artefacts. The resilience engineering approach argues that if the performance of systems is to be resilient, then they must be able to respond, monitor, learn and anticipate. The last ability in particular means that they must be able to consider themselves vis-à-vis their environment, i.e. be sentient and reflective systems. In practice, this means people individually or collectively can adjust what they do to match conditions, identify and overcome flaws and function glitches, recognize actual demands and make appropriate adjustments, detect when something goes wrong and intervene before the situation becomes serious. It is particularly important to understand the range of conditions about why and how the system functions in the ‘desired’ mode as well as ‘unwanted’ modes. Resilience is the capacity to sustain operations under both expected and unexpected conditions. The unexpected conditions are not only threats but also opportunities.