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zen geometry

500 year old Ryoanji temple garden, Kyoto.
In 2002 Gert Van Tonder of Kyoto University discovered 500-year-old rock patterns suggest 'tree' to our subconscious mind. The beauty of one of Japan's most popular Zen gardens has long eluded explanation. Now neuroscientists have discovered its minimalist design suggests a pleasing picture to our subconcious. Using symmetry calculations the objects imply a tree image in the empty space. The finding suggests that Japanese garden designers - originally priests - "balanced forces from visual science," says study leader Van Tonder. Repeating the calculations with random rock groups failed to generate any similar patterns. Earlier work by Ilona Kovács, a visual scientist at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, showed that the human brain uses similar symmetry lines, like those of a child's stick figure, to make sense of shapes. See also gestalt theory.

conceptual age

Lunch time at Electronic City, Infosys Ltd., Bangalore

Companies are increasingly coming to terms with the idea that the workspace, is an under-utilized brand asset. According to Daniel Pink's book A Whole New Mind we have now entered the Conceptual Economy, where creativity and right brain thinking is defining successful business in the Western markets.

Phlippe Rahm

Invisible Architecture at the FRAC Centre April 2005
Philippe Rahm and Jean-Gilles Décosterd, architects from Lausanne, have created a concept for invisible architecture. Their exhibition highlights architectural elements that are not normally visible, but nevertheless play an integral role in the work, like the control of fluids, light and air. All these elements modify the reality of our surroundings over and above the constructions themselves and in this way transform man's perception of temporality. Air as a physical medium. Space, improperly described as a vacuum, is recognized in its corporeality. The result is a reconquest of space as a quantity of air and air as matter, with its weight, density and physical and chemical characteristics, in which the human body is immersed.

Wave UFO

Moriko Mori's work hovers on the edge of kitsch, but also merges a myriad of connected influences, from anime to transhumanism. Wave UFO the work transcends the pop iconography of her earlier efforts and offers an immersive experience that brings together architecture, real-time computer graphics, brainwave technology, sound, and state-of-the-art engineering to create a profound interactive experience. Inside Wave UFO, viewers, three at a time, watch a projection on the ceiling.

Each viewer is outfitted with electrodes, which gather brainwave data. This information is transformed into visual imagery and projected onto the screen: six undulating bio-amorphous cells represent the left and right lobes of each of the participants' brains, and a waving line moves in correspondence with blinks and other facial movements. The forms change shape and color in response to three types of brainwaves. Alpha (blue) waves indicate wakeful relaxation, Beta (pink) waves indicate alertness or agitation, and Theta (yellow) waves indicate a dreamlike state. Two cells coming together demonstrate "coherence" between the two lobes of the brain. Mental functions such as thinking in other languages or doing math problems immediately transform the characteristics of the graphics.

A second part of the projection links the individual experience to the universal through an animation sequence. Abstract forms expand and evolve into single cells and molecular structures, creating a dream world that is at once primordial and ethereal. With this sequence, Mori brings the viewer into "a deeper consciousness in which the self and the universe become interconnected." moriko mori

ANFA

The Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA) is a unique research venture between architects and neuroscientists. John Eberhard, FAIA, has been a driving force behind ANFA since its inception. “Architecture stands on the threshold of a new era,” says Eberhard. “The enormous body of knowledge being created by neuroscientists is about to dramatically change what it means to be a professional designer. Architects will benefit from the new knowledge base made possible by neuroscience, but the real beneficiaries are future generations of school children, hospital patients, and office workers who will have their environments more carefully tuned to their needs and desires.” In his paper “Architecture and the Mind,” Eberhard writes, “The research results emerging from neuroscience provide knowledge of the basic biology of the brain, of how our minds use the brain to process experiences, and of why the human brain has evolved in this way.” Among the recent discoveries, for example, is a finding by Fred Gage, Ph.D., president of ANFA, that enrichment and exercise can lead to a re-tooling of the adult brain. Gage is a professor at the Salk Institute’s Laboratory of Genetics. Tools that didn’t exist as recently as 10 years ago are available now to study brain function. Scientists can employ imaging techniques to see what’s happening inside the brain, including which areas of a person’s brain are in use or being stimulated. New brain scanning devices can trace mental processes as a person moves, sees, hears, meditates or experiences emotions. Unlocking the Brain for Better Architecture & Design

Snoezelen

The concept of Snoezelen was defined in the late 1970's by two Dutch therapists, Jan Hulsegge and Ad Verheul. While working at the De Hartenberg Institute in Holland, a center for people with intellectual disabilities, the two therapists learned of the positive responses a colleague was able to elicit from his severely challenged clients while exposed to a sensory environment he had assembled. So successful was the experiment, a Snoezelen centre was installed in 1987 at Whittington Hall, England. Joe Kewin and his team offered six sensory environments to their clients and also pioneered early research examining client response to the Snoezelen multisensory approach. The results were impressive, specifically in clients who showed a marked reduction in self-abusive behaviors. Snoezelen is now used widely in education and care settings for children with disabilities and autism spectrum disorders. Encouraging results have also been shown from people suffering from mental illness, chronic pain, acquired brain injury, and stress. Over the past fifteen years, Snoezelen has expanded into 30 countries with thousands of installations, a worldwide foundation, national and international conferences, and research projects.

Weather Project

The Weather Project was installed at the Tate Modern in 2003 as part of the popular Unilever series. The installation filled the open space of the gallery's Turbine Hall with representations of the Sun and the sky. Olafur Eliasson used humidifiers to create a fine mist in the air via a mixture of sugar and water, as well as a semi-circular disc made up of hundreds of mono-frequency lamps which emitted pure yellow light. The ceiling of the hall was covered with a huge mirror, in which visitors could see themselves as tiny black shadows against a mass of orange light. Many visitors responded to this exhibition by lying on their backs and waving their hands.

Hypnosis Chamber

This project by R&Sie in 2006 is produced as an indoor chamber, an immersion zone, where a hypnosis session has been registered on individual flat screen. The chamber is included in the wall of the residence, for all the family (maximum 5 people). In front of them an origami, as an extension of the wall is used for a home-DVD hypnosis screen. The hypno-chamber is a way to construct a personal relationship, as a “waking up sleeper” with a fictional environment only reachable by hypnosis. The hypno-chamber is an open door; a Trans-door, in the sense of Dan Simmons (Hyperion), to escape on another layer, an egalitarian layer where the notion of democracy in re-evaluated, as a self determination process...

Architecture Principe

Villa Drusch by Virilio & Parent
In 1963 Claude Parent and Paul Virilio formed the "Architecture Principe" group with the aim of investigating a new kind of architectural and urban order. The Function of the Oblique describes the experimental, provocative and largely undocumented collaboration between the architect Claude Parent and the cultural theorist Paul Virilio, who investigated a new kind of architectural and urban order which forced the body to adapt to disequilibrium, encouraging vertigo and promoting fluid, continuous movement.

Vidar Clinic

Intentionally designed as a therapeutic instrument, the anthroposophically oriented Vidar Clinic near Stockholm, Sweden, is a 74-bed non-surgical hospital offering care primarily for people with chronic diseases. Since opening in 1985 the clinic has become widely regarded as a model for human-centered design due to the extraordinary milieu of care of its interior and exterior spaces. Social spaces are defined as those areas in the hospital in which patients and staff can experience themselves as members of the larger hospital community. Specifically, the spaces include multi-functional day rooms, street-like corridors, the dining hall, café, courtyard, and assembly hall. It is thus suggested that the social spaces of the Vidar Clinic perform an important therapeutic functions in the anthroposophic approach to medicine and that architects can learn a great deal about the design of conventional long-term health care facilities from this case study.