The brain, the bastard and the lazy, cares only about its own convenience. And when he has good ideas, it is out of laziness. And how to do architecture with this type? Fortunately, he is sometimes nosy.
Ignorance is power, Orwell wrote. When one doesn't know something important, the more powerfully one knows nonsense and goes on autopilot. And since force these days is rightly beginning to outmaneuver brash diplomacy, persuasion and other stunts for mummies, ignorance stocks are flying high. Without further ado, one can hijack a president, a big island, a peace prize, one dog. Quickly, easily and effectively, which is probably a good thing, because as cognitive scientist Professor Maciej Blaszak of the Adam Mickiewicz University proclaimed at Budma in February, during the Forum of Design and Architecture , the brain is a slacker, likes it easy and, when it can, takes shortcuts. He was talking about the brain because the Forum was about aesthetics in architecture and we were examining where it comes from in our heads that something is "pretty" or not. The brain is also lazy in a different way. Only a brain free from ad hoc operational work," the professor continued, " can generate something creative. Swamped by the day-to-day, it will not create anything worthy of attention.
Perhaps this is why architects forced by life to accumulate gigabytes of non-architectural knowledge in their heads have a tendency to ignorance, that is, a mediocre enthusiasm to - in their unoccupied spare moments - cram something more about architecture and reality into their heads. More than what they learned in college or at the beginning of their professional so-called careers. For example, how a person really works, what he really likes and what causes him pleasure. And - if the pleasure comes from interacting with a building or plaza - what makes one think warmly, say, of the architect or architect who made it "nice."
Recently there has been a growing body of knowledge about what in the surrounding space has a positive effect on us, and this knowledge is based not only on declarations and surveys, but on hard research under even harder to remember names, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), eyetracking or ophthalmography and - here more simply and old-fashionedly - EEG. Hovering over all this is the term "neuroarchitecture." This is how researchers rummage through brains and see what makes us tick, even though we would cuss that it doesn't. Admittedly, the research is often still based only on reactions to images and videos; there's still not enough money to let the connected test subjects loose on the streets without problems and en masse to monitor reactions to all spatial stimuli. But in a while there probably will be. Marketing specialists are even taking advantage of this incomplete knowledge and are having results. For some reason, we are making for an increasingly perfect hurricane sweeping store shelves.
So: it's time to take advantage of the fact that the brain is not only lazy, but also, out of boredom, inquisitive and curious, and study and then use the results of the study. Then we'll find out what sometimes and what the manifestations of pleasant spatial sensations really are, that is, beauty and aesthetics understood more broadly and deeply. In short: tastes, which, by the dumb adage, are not discussed, and during the Forum we discussed like fools, getting wiser every now and then from lecture to lecture and discussion to discussion. Research! - so said, including Professor Blaszak, other discussants and discussants, including architect Marta Wierusz, who does similar research on an ongoing basis, for her own use and benefit, but - as a practicing designer - is one of the rarities here.
They also conduct such research at some universities, the knowledge of which breaks through slowly and poorly. And when it does break through, hide who can. It so happened that three days before the Budm Forum, TOK FM Radio aired a good podcast about eyetracking in architecture, featuring a specialist on the subject, Professor Marta Rusnak of the Wroclaw University of Technology. Already, under the Facebook trailer, an architect and publicist also present in these pages (name known to the editors) whined: if we want to turn architecture into a circus, this is the tool just in time! I have heard similar opinions from other male architects, for whom, it seems, research and hard evidence dignify their inclination to design without looking too much at the user. Another thing is to be careful. If a simplistic study comes out that the people like columns, the developer will order to do columns and there will be no discussion. However, we have reached the circus in residential architecture without modern research as well. Perhaps precisely because without them?
Anyway, research does not have to be only hi-tech. Researchers repeat: workshops, discussions and in-depth interviews, if enough time is spent on them, are also to the point. Because, on average , half of our judgments along the lines of pretty-not pretty, pleasant-unpleasant are born in the brain instinctively. The other half, on the other hand, results from experience, knowledge, rung on the social ladder, age, gender and a thousand and one acquired trifles. The machine will detect that we like something, and after a short thought we will say that it is fig, kitsch and trash. And vice versa.
It is interesting at the same time that checking how it really is, is mainly done in architecture by ladies. Not only female architects, to remind you of Jane Jacobs, but even female doctors - and Polish ones at that! Natalia Olszewska almost a decade ago, after additional studies in Venice, became a specialist in neuroscience applied to architecture, and from this perspective consults on the projects of various studios. She also says that active architects need to be further educated on the matter. And I would have already appealed to those in power for some kind of research body, a kind of think tank at the national level, such bodies are always in short supply in our country, but the news broke that the government has just established a think tank called the Council of the Future. The Council of the Future, which, as commentators have noted, will probably not include women (there are three out of sixteen guys on the Council) and the environment (the naturalist was also missing). If this is what national brain trusts are supposed to look like, perhaps we should quietly wait. For now, a council to examine what the future holds for the Council of the Future will be useful.
Jakub Głaz
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