Last August, on the Apollonian campus of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, neuroscientists and architects came together to flush the architecture profession with a bit more cerebral rigor. Under the guidance of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA), that 2014 conference hoped to provide architects with salient neuroscientific data to use in practice. While still considered somewhat of a niche agenda, advances in brain science and brain-computer interfaces have already been adopted by architectural research; if not for scientific experimentations, then design ones. And that research is happening thanks to the experimental frontiers only possible in academia. But aside from experimental novelty, neuroscience stands to help architects better understand not just their process, but subsequently, how the discipline is taught.

A new conference hosted by the Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture, “Sculpting the Architectural Mind: Neuroscience and the Education of the Architect” moves into the question of how neuroscientific data might impact architectural pedagogy. Organized in collaboration with ANFA by architects Dan Bucsescu and Ralph Steenblik, along with Michael Arbib (a founding Board Member of ANFA), the conference has mirrored intentions: to better understand the mind of the architect through neuroscience, and to let these lessons guide pedagogical priorities. The conference points particularly to the generational shift toward digital design tools – a drastic change with poorly understood cognitive effects and precedents. Much of the two-day syllabus addresses age-old design motifs, such as the hand-to-mind connection, two dimensional representations of three dimensional spaces, virtual realities, and way-finding, with presentations and panel discussions from artists, historians, architectural theorists, and philosophers alongside the neuroscientists and architects.

The conference will take place at Pratt this Thursday and Friday, and is free and open to the public. It will also be live-streamed. Click here for more details on attending, including a complete syllabus of speakers.

I spoke with co-organizers Dan Bucsescu and Ralph Steenblik about the conference's major talking points, touching on its far-reaching implications for practice, education, and even architectural philosophy. Listen to their thoughts below:

If you're looking for an access point into the world of neuroscience and architecture, Dan and Ralph recommended a few intro works:

• A Universe of Consciousness: How Matter Becomes Imagination by Gerald M. Edelman and Giulio Tononi
• How Things Shape the Mind - A Theory of Material Engagement by Lambros Malafouris
• The Architect's Brain: Neuroscience, Creativity, and Architecture by Harry Francis Malgrave
• Brain Landscape: The Coexistence of Neuroscience and Architecture by John P. Eberhard