Image: D'Arcy Norman | Flickr

Architects often look at where their occupants travel within their building, what makes them decide to go wherever they are going, and what behaviors they engage in once they arrive. But what actually happens to building occupants as they move through your building? Does the speed at which they move through your building have impact on their experiences while they are there? And upon how those experiences are remembered?

In a recent research article published by Science Daily, it was cited that the Society for Neuroscience studied and found evidence that “activity in rats’ memory-related brain areas varies with how quickly they move to explore their environments”. (1) So, for our purposes, we can begin to deduce that the speed at which a subject moves, can alter their memory of the setting within which they moved. (1)

Here is a slightly more detailed description of why this happens in the first place:

“They found that the pathway associated with storing and consolidating memories was most active when the animals moved slowly. At faster speeds, the balance shifted from these circuits to circuits bringing in info from the outside world.” (1)

Speeding Your Occupants Up Versus Slowing Them Down

So, within your own building projects, how might you go about designing for the way in which your occupants move? And what about your design solutions might benefit them as they engage in their real-time activities within your building?

First, you must ask yourself how you would go about slowing them down versus speeding them up as they travel to and fro within your built environment. For instance, might putting in a sloping floor impact their Read more

Piet Mondrian, Broadway Boogie Woogie
Image: wallyg | Flickr

An amazing artist is Piet Mondrian, who is known for painting Broadway Boogie Woogie. This painting is quite remarkable and one of its defining qualities is its ability to convey motion to its viewers. As if to deconstruct music, this painting makes use of color, pattern, geometry and sizing.

Consequently, Piet Mondrian has made an excellent and tangible example for us to better understand why we perceive motion when looking at his work. Much can be explained by delving into neuroscience.

Why We Perceive Motion in the Painting

In her book, Vision and Art (affiliate link), Harvard neurobiologist Margaret Livingstone explains why this painting appears to “move or jitter”. She explains that the yellow and gray squares are “close to equiluminant” and they are set against an off-white background.” (1)

You see, the luminance in color plays a special role in Read more