Architecture and Embodiment

Mallgrave, Harry Francis

doi:10.4324/9780203071144

Cited by 78 publications

(38 citation statements)

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“…For instance, a significant aspect of the Heideggerian account suggests that our primary way of existing is essentially a pragmatic action-oriented encounter with our environment (Moran, 2000 ). This practical and embodied character of our lived experiences implies that the manner in which things are presented to us is determined by the nature of the body as well as by our interests and goals; things are known through their “manipulability” or being “ready-to-hand” (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2008 ; Mallgrave, 2013 ). This concept of readiness, together with Husserl's notion of intentionality as “I can,” has found strong expression in Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of embodiment, and more specifically in the concept of body schema as our “primordial grip” on the world, which is always a practical and intentional one, as described above.…”

Section: Affordances Enacted: Experience Of Architecture As Designed mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Enactive Approach to Architectural Experience: A Neurophysiological Perspective on Embodiment, Motivation, and Affordances

et al. 2016

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Over the last few years, the efforts to reveal through neuroscientific lens the relations between the mind, body, and built environment have set a promising direction of using neuroscience for architecture. However, little has been achieved thus far in developing a systematic account that could be employed for interpreting current results and providing a consistent framework for subsequent scientific experimentation. In this context, the enactive perspective is proposed as a guide to studying architectural experience for two key reasons. Firstly, the enactive approach is specifically selected for its capacity to account for the profound connectedness of the organism and the world in an active and dynamic relationship, which is primarily shaped by the features of the body. Thus, particular emphasis is placed on the issues of embodiment and motivational factors as underlying constituents of the body-architecture interactions. Moreover, enactive understanding of the relational coupling between body schema and affordances of architectural spaces singles out the two-way bodily communication between architecture and its inhabitants, which can be also explored in immersive virtual reality settings. Secondly, enactivism has a strong foothold in phenomenological thinking that corresponds to the existing phenomenological discourse in architectural theory and qualitative design approaches. In this way, the enactive approach acknowledges the available common ground between neuroscience and architecture and thus allows a more accurate definition of investigative goals. Accordingly, the outlined model of architectural subject in enactive terms—that is, a model of a human being as embodied, enactive, and situated agent, is proposed as a basis of neuroscientific and phenomenological interpretation of architectural experience.

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Section: Affordances Enacted: Experience Of Architecture As Designed mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Enactive Approach to Architectural Experience: A Neurophysiological Perspective on Embodiment, Motivation, and Affordances

et al. 2016

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“…With their book The Embodied Mind , Varela et al (1991) proposed a phenomenological study of cognition considering physical characteristics and abilities of the body in determining how and what sensorimotor knowledge people are able to construct through interactions in their environments. Influences of phenomenology and embodiment are found today in architectural designs by Zumthor ( Mallgrave, 2013 ), Holl, and Pallasmaa ( Holl et al, 2006 ), with Pallasmaa largely responsible for bringing awareness of embodied cognition to architectural design ( Mallgrave, 2011 ) by advocating for multi-sensory environments engaging hearing, smell, and touch as antidote to the visual bias in architecture, which he believes yields “impoverished environments” causing feelings of detachment and alienation in users ( Pallasmaa, 2005 ).…”

Section: Physically Situating Creativity With the 3e’smentioning

confidence: 99%

Creative Practices Embodied, Embedded, and Enacted in Architectural Settings: Toward an Ecological Model of Creativity

Malinin

2016

Front. Psychol.

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Memoires by eminently creative people often describe architectural spaces and qualities they believe instrumental for their creativity. However, places designed to encourage creativity have had mixed results, with some found to decrease creative productivity for users. This may be due, in part, to lack of suitable empirical theory or model to guide design strategies. Relationships between creative cognition and features of the physical environment remain largely uninvestigated in the scientific literature, despite general agreement among researchers that human cognition is physically and socially situated. This paper investigates what role architectural settings may play in creative processes by examining documented first person and biographical accounts of creativity with respect to three central theories of situated cognition. First, the embodied thesis argues that cognition encompasses both the mind and the body. Second, the embedded thesis maintains that people exploit features of the physical and social environment to increase their cognitive capabilities. Third, the enaction thesis describes cognition as dependent upon a person’s interactions with the world. Common themes inform three propositions, illustrated in a new theoretical framework describing relationships between people and their architectural settings with respect to different cognitive processes of creativity. The framework is intended as a starting point toward an ecological model of creativity, which may be used to guide future creative process research and architectural design strategies to support user creative productivity.

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“…Recent publications raise compelling arguments about mutual concepts of embodiment in architecture and neuroscience ( Eberhard, 2009 ; Mallgrave, 2013 ; Pasqualini and Blanke, 2014 ). A commonplace to the theories of embodiment has been related to the search for the origin of meaning in architectonic space linked to a human need for beauty and collective social behavior or emotions ( Mallgrave, 2015 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Architectonic Experience of Body and Space in Augmented Interiors

et al. 2018

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The environment shapes our experience of space in constant interaction with the body. Architectonic interiors amplify the perception of space through the bodily senses; an effect also known as embodiment. The interaction of the bodily senses with the space surrounding the body can be tested experimentally through the manipulation of multisensory stimulation and measured via a range of behaviors related to bodily self-consciousness. Many studies have used Virtual Reality to show that visuotactile conflicts mediated via a virtual body or avatar can disrupt the unified subjective experience of the body and self. In the full-body illusion paradigm, participants feel as if the avatar was their body (ownership, self-identification) and they shift their center of awareness toward the position of the avatar (self-location). However, the influence of non-bodily spatial cues around the body on embodiment remains unclear, and data about the impact of architectonic space on human perception and self-conscious states are sparse. We placed participants into a Virtual Reality arena, where large and narrow virtual interiors were displayed with and without an avatar. We then applied synchronous or asynchronous visuotactile strokes to the back of the participants and avatar, or, to the front wall of the void interiors. During conditions of illusory self-identification with the avatar, participants reported sensations of containment, drift, and touch with the architectonic environment. The absence of the avatar suppressed such feelings, yet, in the large space, we found an effect of continuity between the physical and the virtual interior depending on the full-body illusion. We discuss subjective feelings evoked by architecture and compare the full-body illusion in augmented interiors to architectonic embodiment. A relevant outcome of this study is the potential to dissociate the egocentric, first-person view from the physical point of view through augmented architectonic space.

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Architecture and Embodiment

Cited by 78 publications

References 0 publications

The Enactive Approach to Architectural Experience: A Neurophysiological Perspective on Embodiment, Motivation, and Affordances

The Enactive Approach to Architectural Experience: A Neurophysiological Perspective on Embodiment, Motivation, and Affordances

Creative Practices Embodied, Embedded, and Enacted in Architectural Settings: Toward an Ecological Model of Creativity

The Architectonic Experience of Body and Space in Augmented Interiors

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