Archinect - News

Suchi Reddy on the bridge between neuroaesthetics and experience

2022-03-21T12:14:00-04:00

I think of architecture as embodied art. It's about holistically experiencing our world through all of our senses, and so architecture is the perfect matrix for considering neuroaesthetics. The same parts of your brain that teach you to think about the future are the same ones that are manipulated by your experience of space. The better your space is, the better you are going to be.

The outsized impact architectural forms have on the human psyche is still a growing field of research and has been behind Suchi Reddy’s recent installations at the Salone del Mobile and Smithsonian Institution as well as her ethereal design for the first Google storefront in New York City.

The Reddymade founder also spoke about her upcoming Canadian project entitled Becoming, and why the personal experiences behind her creative process have led to similar forms of heartfelt architectonic expression.

“The work is inspired by the liminal experience of an immigrant. Tectonically expressed as an arch form, it represents both a gateway and a process of transformation. Inspired by the multi-national demographics of Surrey, I felt it was important to propose an artwork that celebrates the process of becoming oneself, expressing the transmutation of people through cultures and lands as an el...

The Brain on Architecture

2014-11-10T13:47:00-05:00

The provisional conclusions of the study are that the brain behaves differently when exposed to contemplative and non-contemplative buildings, contemplative states elicited through “architectural aesthetics” are similar to the contemplation of traditional meditation in some ways, and different in other ways, and, finally, that “architectural design matters.”

What makes a building sacred?

2014-10-22T13:47:00-04:00

The new science of neuroaesthetics [...] tells us much about the way pure form is dealt with by the brain. [...] V S Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, and William Hirstein, a philosopher at Elmhurst College in Illinois, argue that we are innately attuned to recognise things as unified objects – such that we find brushstrokes or architectural features that can be mentally assembled into a coherent whole more beautiful.