Stanford University Guest Lecture
“Our bodies and surroundings indeed are one.”
Stanford University is offering a new Continuing Studies called Brains, Bodies, and Buildings: Neuro-Architecture & Spaces that Shape Us. Tye Farrow delivered the first guest lecture to the course on January 26. Discussing salutogenic design, the qualities of enriching environments, and key theories supporting neuroarchitectural research.
Tye Farrow is currently undertaking a doctorate in public health at the University of Toronto after completing a master in neuroscience applied to architecture from the University of Venice IUAV. Neuroarchitectural research has determined quantitative evidence of the effects that the built environment has on the human body. This evidence is he backbone to the salutogenic design methods employed throughout Farrow Partners work.
Stress Recovery Theory, for example, was first developed in 1983 by American architecture professor and healthcare design research Roger Ulrich. The theory poses that after being in a stressful space, individuals experience an automatic biological compulsion to leave the space they are in and seek out a natural environment. Nature has the power to regulate physiological effects of the stress by recharging energy and producing a positive emotional change.
The SZMC ‘Butterfly’ Helmsley Cancer Centre is an example of how Stress Recovery Theory has been infused into salutogenic architectural design.