Kansas State University

Symposium today at K-State looks at neuroscience, architecture and design

Submitted by Communications and Marketing

The symposium "Meaning in Architecture: Affordances, Atmosphere and Mood," an "Interfaces" event of the Academy of Nueroscience For Architecture, will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 17, in the College of Architecture, Planning & Design's Regnier Forum.

The symposium brings architects and neuroscientists together for a conversation about human perception of design and building, specifically focusing on the significance of affordances, embodied simulation, atmosphere and mood. It is sponsored by K-State's HOK Studio; Bob Condia, professor of architecture and Regnier chair for research; and the architecture department.

The symposium is free and open to K-State students, faculty and staff, but reservations are required by contacting Marlina Bedros at medros@k-state.edu.

Presenting at the symposium will be the following experts:

• Brent Chamberlain, K-State assistant professor of landscape architecture and regional & community planning, will present "The Physio-Affective Built-Enviorment" at 8:30 a.m. As director of the Advanced Landscape Immersion and Visualization Environment, or ALIVE!, Chamberlain combines computer graphics, geovisualization, information visualization and GIScience to conduct scientific inquiry and understanding.
  
  
• Colin Ellard, a professor of psychology who specializes in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Walterloo in Canada, and Condia will present "Place, Peripheral Vision and Space Perception: a pilot study in VR" at 9:15 a.m. Their study looks at the consequences of central and peripheral vision in urban plazas of classical and modern articulation.
  
  
• Michael Arbib, currently an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of California at San Diego and a contributing faculty member at the NewSchool of Architecture and Design in San Diego, will present "It Takes More Than A Hippocampus to Build a Cognitive Map" at 10:30 a.m. The talk looks at what goes on in the brain or architects designing a building and in the brains of people experiencing architecture. Arbib is a pioneer in the interdisciplinary study of artificial intelligence, neuroscience and computation. 
  
  
• The symposium will wrap up with Kevin Rooney, a K-State architecture alumnus and owner of Rooney Associates Architects, moderating a panel of the morning's speakers on "How Architects Can Talk to Neuroscientists: How Nueroscientists Can Talk to Architects."