Abstract
The design of the environment (space), in which the role of the architect is to provide context for human experience, has for generations been the primary mode of design practice. Before the advent of neuroscience and its subsequent consideration in the field of architectural design, designers could not have a clear understanding about the role of space in shaping the body experience. Architects often relied solely on personal preference, building experience and typological/structural necessity to make spatial design decisions. Through the advancement of neuroscience research and availability of monitoring tools such as non-invasive brainwave devices, EEG (Electroencephalography) and BCI (Brain Computer Interface), designers and architects, individuals not specializing in the field of neuroscience research, now have the opportunity to utilize brain wave control and interaction as a means to more actively and objectively participate in the exchange of information between the brain and environmental space.The objective of this research is to develop a cybernetic framework that can provide architectural designers new tools and methods to approach space design based on human cognition. Specifically, the experimental setup in this research focuses on the generation of virtual spaces,
using energy harmonic geometry, that reacts in real-time to human cognition. Based on the cybernetic concept proposed by Norbert Wiener, the spatial response, elicited from human cognition, is fed into a looping framework generating further spatial transformation, until a predetermined cognitive condition is met. The research experiment uses a non-invasive brain-computer interface to collect users' brainwave patterns, convert collected patterns into harmonic geometric space and analyze the collected data. Frequency domain features, in the Virtual Reality (VR) environment, are used as the presentation medium to create an immersive real-time virtual environment for test subjects. This report includes the development process of the cybernetic framework, the Virtual Adaptive Environment (VAE) simulation apparatus as well as an analysis of experimental data collected from seven test subject groups. While the results gathered from the user data in this research suggests that little correlation exists between active and passive cognitive response in harmonic space environments, the success of the VAE simulation apparatus demonstrates great potential
for further experimentation and application in design exploration, addressing Gorden Pask's belief that buildings in the future should respond to the environment, establish their own meaning and allow people to actively participate the transformation of their own space.
| Date of Award | 2020 |
|---|---|
| Original language | Chinese (Traditional) |
| Supervisor | Kane Yanagawa (Supervisor) |