Skip to main content
Loading Events
April 23

Architecture & the 21st-Century Paradigm Shift: Designing for the Subliminal Brain – for Health, Well-being & Happiness

Ann Sussman
Location
HSPH, FXB, G12
677 Huntington Ave
Boston, MA 02115

Time

1:00 pm 1:50 pm

Event Type: Seminar

From Around the School, Lectures/Seminars/Forums

On Wednesday, April 23rd, from 1-1:50 PM in FXB G12 or online, please join us for the final instalment in our Environments for Health and Happiness Seminar Series, featuring architect and author Ann Sussman.

Event Description:

This talk discusses the neuroscience that reframes our understanding of how architecture impacts us, including how people non-consciously take-in their surroundings, and how that influences public health and placemaking.  The talk will demonstrate eye-tracking and other biometric tools which reveal non-conscious human behaviors, including how our brain is hardwired to seek out detail and avoids looking at blankness in the built environment. 

The big idea? Today’s biometric tools provide a new lens to ’see’ our world, transforming our understanding of what people need to see and be in to be at their best.

Speaker Bio:

Ann Sussman, an architect, author, researcher and teacher, is passionate about understanding how buildings impact us. She serves as president of the Human Architecture + Planning Institute, (theHapi.org), a nonprofit devoted to improving the design of the built environment through education and research. Her book Cognitive Architecture, Designing for How We Respond to the Built Environment (Routledge, 2015, 2021) won the 2016 Place Research Award from the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA). Ann teaches a course on using biometrics in design, ‘Buildings, Biology + the Brain’, at the Boston Architectural College (BAC). She co-edited the forthcoming Handbook of Neuroscience and the Built Environment (Routledge, 2025), due out this June, which compiles 31 chapters by 50 authors on 4 continents, who are eager to bridge the arts and sciences to promote health and wellbeing worldwide.

Speaker Information