About
Supported by the School of Architecture and Built Environment and the Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology at Deakin University, this research project is an Australian frontier in the investigation of how the design of the built-environment affects human emotion. It aims to bring light to the ‘invisible’ – understanding the role architecture plays on our psychological well-being. The project ran from 2018 – 2022.
Dr Isabella Bower will be continuing with this research from 2023 – 2028 through a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of South Australia.
Research Aims
- To assess current methodologies and evidence of emotional and neurophysiological responses to the design characteristics of physically or virtually experienced enclosed built environments in healthy and clinical populations.
- To understand the relationship/s between design characteristics of the built environment and emotion and neurophysiological responses through testing in a virtual built environment simulation.
- To create a mixed-methods framework for evaluation of the emotional and neurophysiological responses to the design characteristics of enclosed interior built-environments. The framework and results should be able to inform practitioners and policy makers on impacts design decisions have on our mental states.
Team
The research was undertaken by Dr Isabella Bower, supervised by Prof Peter Enticott from the School of Psychology and Prof Richard Tucker from the School of Architecture and Built Environment at Deakin University.