The first session will present a series of provocations as ‘lightning talks’ around the theme of ‘Architecture and Mind’. Architecture has a rich history considering the phenomenology of space and contemporary neuroscience and its intersection with architecture promise to deepen knowledge and understanding. Panelists will discuss challenges and potentials with each other and then invite members of the audience to ask questions and join the conversation.

The panel was not intended for AIA credit.

Moderators: Hugo Spiers and Fiona Zisch
Panellists: Sean Hanna, Alan Penn, Yeoryia Manolopoulou, Niall McLaughlin, Sam McElhinney, Lara Gregorians

Moderators

Hugo Spiers is director of the Spatial Cognition Laboratory at UCL. His research team study how our brain constructs representations of the world and uses them to navigate, imagine the future and remember the past.

Fiona Zisch is programme director of Design for Performance and Interaction MArch at The Bartlett School of Architecture. Her research explores cognitive ecologies with a special interest in radical embodiment, as well as potentials of cross-disciplinarity between architecture and neuroscience (neuroarchitecture) and shared knowledge production within a critical framework.

Speakers

Sean Hanna is Professor of Design Computing and a member of the UCL Space Syntax Laboratory. His research is primarily in developing computational methods for dealing with complexity in the built environment, including the comparative modelling of space and its perception by machine, and the use of machine learning.

Alan Penn is Professor in Architectural and Urban Computing and a founding director of Space Syntax Ltd. His research focuses on understanding the way that the design of the built environment affects the patterns of social and economic behaviour of organisations and communities.

Yeoryia Manolopoulou is an architect and design researcher working from two parallel positions: as Professor of Architecture and Experimental Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture and as founder and co-director of AY Architects. Her work focuses on the connections that can be made between architecture and experience, aleatoricism and environment. She is interested in the innate capacity of architecture to construct a felt reality (drawn or built).

Níall McLaughlin is Professor of Architectural Practice at The Bartlett School of Architecture and prinicipal architect at Niall McLaughlin Architects, the winner of the 2022 Stirling Prize. For his practice's design for an Alzheimer's Respite Centre in Dublin, and his subsequent collaboration with Yeoryia Manolopoulou in the creation of an installation at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Niall explored the neuroscience and psychology of dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

Sam McElhinney is programme director for Architecture at UCA, Canterbury and a UCL affiliate. His research is focused on developing real-time and motive spatial analytic models. He is a former member of the ‘Space Group’ at University College London (UCL) and has expansive theoretical and exhibit based research into adaptive maze and labyrinth spaces.

Lara Gregorians is a PhD student in the Spatial Cognition Laboratory at UCL. Her research is interested in architectural experience and spatial and aesthetic mapping of architectural spaces, with a focus on physiological and subjective responses.