In the last few years, surprising new developments in neuroscience, environmental psychology, biology, mathematics, and other fields have begun to challenge designers to think differently about their role, particularly as we seek to transition to a world of healthier and more resilient environments. Science reveals the essential geometrical and sensorial qualities that create spaces promoting healing and life. Diagnostic tools such as eye-tracking and Visual Simulation Software also show that many pieces of the built environment are either invisible to the unconscious, or they create anxiety. Leading researchers and authors will discuss many of these findings, and their sometimes provocative implications.

Anchor: Nikos A. Salingaros, Professor, University of Texas, San Antonio

Speakers:

  • Phillip Roos, Director, Live+Smart Research Laboratory
  • Ann Sussman, President, the Human Architecture + Planning Institute, Inc
  • Nir Buras, Architect-Planner, Washington, DC
  • Catie Ryan Balagtas, Author, consultant & Director of projects, Terrapin Bright Green
  • Alexandros A. Lavdas, Neuroscientist, Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy
  • Prem Chandavarkar, Managing Partner, CnT Archtiects, Bangalore
  • Nikos A. Salingaros: Dr. Nikos A. Salingaros PhD is Professor of Mathematics and Architecture at the University of Texas at San Antonio. An internationally recognized Architectural Theorist and Urbanist, he collaborated with the visionary architect Christopher Alexander in editing the four-volume The Nature of Order. The author of several books and many research articles on Architecture and Urbanism, Salingaros won the 2019 Stockholm Cultural Award for Architecture, and shared the 2018 Clem Labine Traditional Building Award with Michael Mehaffy.
  • Alexandros A. Lavdas: Dr. Alexandros A. Lavdas, MSc, PhD, is a neuroscientist at Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy, and a member of the Human Architecture and Planning Institute, Concord, Massachusetts. He holds a PhD from University College London (UCL) and has worked at UCL and the Hellenic Pasteur Institute in Athens. He also taught at the University of Indianapolis and Webster University (Athens branches). He has worked extensively in nervous system development and regeneration, and is especially interested in examining elements of visual organized complexity, such as those found in nature and pre-modern architecture, and exploring their physiological and neural correlates.
  • Phillip Roös: Dr. Phillip Roös is the Director of the Live+Smart Research Laboratory and Associate Professor at the School of Architecture and Built Environment, Deakin University, Perth, Australia. He has been working as an environmental design professional and architect for more than 30 years on an extensive range of large-scale projects in Europe, Africa and Australasia. His research interests are centred on the human-nature relationship and the identification of optimised design processes based on a regenerative-adaptive pattern language theory. This approach incorporates the principles of biophilia and regenerative design as well as an adaptive pattern language that re-establishes our wholeness with nature and considers the vulnerabilities of a changing landscape. His recent book titled “Regenerative-Adaptive Design for Sustainable Development, A Pattern Language Approach” (Springer, 2021), has been hailed by Professor Mark DeKay as “a radical and visionary work of immanent practicality… a new manner of thinking if humanity wants to survive”.
  • Ann Sussman: Ann Sussman, RA, is passionate about understanding the human experience of the built environment. Her book, “Cognitive Architecture, Designing for How We Respond to the Built Environment” (2nd Edition, Routledge, 2021) co-authored with Justin B. Hollander, won the Place Research Award from the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) in 2016. Her new book, “Urban Experience and Design: Contemporary Perspectives on Improving the Public Realm” (Routledge 2020) is also co-edited with Hollander. She currently teaches a new course on perception and the human experience of place, Architecture & Cognition, at the Boston Architectural College (BAC). She blogs at https://geneticsofdesign.com.
  • Catie Ryan Balagtas: Catie Ryan Balagtas is an author, consultant and director of projects at Terrapin Bright Green. With an expertise in biophilic design and sustainability, she works with clients on architecture and urban design projects to improve health and well-being in built environments around the world and across development sectors. Catie is co-author of “Nature Inside, A Biophilic Design Guide” (RIBA, 2020), “14 Patterns of Biophilic Design” (2014) and “The Economics of Biophilia” (2012). Catie holds a master’s degree in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University.
  • Nir Buras: Dr. Nir Buras, PhD, RA, NCA, is an architect and planner based in Washington, DC, with over 30 years of experience in large, complex, projects, strategic planning, transport design, traditional architecture, and classic planning. He has worked on East Side Access at Grand Central Terminal, New York; International Terminal D, Dallas-Fort-Worth; the Washington DC Dulles Metro line; on the US Capitol and the Senate Office Buildings in Washington. Buras, whose original degree was Architect and Townplanner, learned his first lesson in urbanism in the Negev Desert in Israel: That Modernist planning didn’t work. Writing a mid-career PhD on modernism—he emerged a classicist. Researching in numerous projects first-hand since then how architecture impacts urban experience, Buras’s breakthrough came in 2015 when in frustration he wrote “The Art of Classic Planning” (Harvard University Press, 2019), which Leon Krier referred to as “The mother of all planning books.” In 2021, Buras founded in Washington DC the Classic Planning Institute, which stewards, applies, teaches, and researches the classic planning knowledgebases.
  • Prem Chandavarkar: Prem Chandavarkar is the managing partner of CnT Architects: an award-winning and widely published architectural practice based in Bangalore, India. He received his training at School of Planning and Architecture Delhi (B.Arch., 1978) and University of Oregon USA (M.Arch., 1982). He is a former Executive Director of Srishti Institute of Art Design & Technology in Bangalore; and currently a member of the board of the Architecture Culture & Spirituality Forum, USA. He is an academic advisor and guest faculty at Indian and international colleges of architecture. Besides his design practice at CnT, he writes, lectures and blogs on architecture, urbanism, philosophy, politics, education, environment, art, and cultural studies.