Neuroarchitecture and Feng Shui: the overlap of an ancient art and an emerging science
Neuroarchitecture is the study of how our built/created environments affect us neurologically and physiologically.
Feng shui is the ancient Chinese system (dating back ~4,000 years) of arranging our environments in a way that enhances our lives through the study of how those arrangements affect our qi, or life energy.
It feels to me like there is overlap in the two, with one backed up by research and one rooted in energetics.
I’ve studied Feng Shui since the early 2000’s and can really feel the difference in a space that follows the principles of feng shui. And part of my research as an environmental scientist dove into landscape planning and the psychology of engineered environments. Not a new discussion, but through the lens of neuroscience, we now have studies that show how our brains react to various environmental settings.
What I find interesting is that there is so much overlap to discuss, here:
—Both consider the visual impact of textures, and how they have the power to cause or reduce stress.
—Both also deal with lighting, sound, space arrangement, and clutter, linking both to stress levels and mood.
Empirical evidence is mounting that our surroundings really do have either a positive or negative affect on us beyond the obviousness of infectious diseases through toxic air, compromised water, lead paint, and the like. I’ve linked several of the studies that I read below this article.
The research is clear: the aesthetics of a place can, quite literally, neurologically and physiologically affect us.
What was considered pseudoscience is now a sort of field of science all its own.
Biophilia, the love of Life itself
Biophilic design is the incorporation of natural elements into our spaces, such as potted plants, natural light, views of the natural world, and fractal-like patterns (repeating at scale, which occurs often in nature).
A team of researchers at University of Cambridge are studying the impact of architectural styles on brain inflammation, which is linked to stress, depression, Alzheimers, and schizophrenia. Participants in this study were asked to look at two different photos of high-rise buildings. The first was a biophilic design with repeating patterns in the structure, utilized organic building materials (specifically wood in this case), and lots of vegetation on balconies and incorporated in the interiors. The second was a typical office building that could have been pulled from any city, a mass of concrete and glass and repeating rectangles with a matching interior lacking natural light or any potted plants. The brain activity of the participants was measured using electroencephalography (EEG) technology, a little cap with electrodes, to map their brain’s electrical activity as they viewed the photos. What the researchers found was participants experienced lower levels of brain inflammation when exposed to the building with the high rate of biophilic design.
And this is just a singular study out of many that show how biophilic design - utilizing textures, patterns, and materials that mimic or are made from nature - is linked to positive physiological and neurological responses (here is another and another).
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Neuroscience: Neurodegeneration & the Implications of Bad Design
This is just one study looking at the stress-inducing aspects of architectural design. Researchers are now starting to look beyond the more obvious links between our lived spaces and health, as previously mentioned, and now asking questions like:
“could bad architectural and interior design, and the increase of the saturation of our exposure to these environments, be contributing to the development and increased rates of neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders?”
Consider how much time we spend in office buildings, stores, schools, our own homes, and how urbanization and climate change might impact this in the future. Consider the implications for urban planning, architecture, and landscape design.
If we contrast spaces we’ve been in that have made us feel at ease, restful and restored, such as near a tall window with views of a garden beyond, with spaces that have made us feel stressed and anxious, such as a low-ceilinged parking garage with flickering fluorescent lighting, the sea of concrete, and reverberating car noises, we can recall the feelings experienced in each – but may not have attributed those directly to a physiological shift in the body. When, in truth, that’s exactly what happens: your body’s reaction to your surroundings drives hormonal shifts that in turn may cause, or reduce, our risks of developing various diseases and conditions like Parkinson’s, depression, anxiety, and Alzheimer’s.
Feng Shui: Considered pseudoscience. . .but is it?
Feng shui, pronounced similar to “fung shway”, translates to “the way of wind and water”. The roots can be found in Taoism, and the belief that the flow of qi, or the life force that inhabits everything, can be improved or hindered depending on building placement and arrangement of interior furniture and objects. The goal is harmony, because qi is comprised of both elements of yin and yang. The concept of yin and yang can be seen as two halves of a whole, opposite energies that complement each other, such as day and night, dark and light, masculine and feminine. Through the arrangement of our environments to achieve a balanced flow of qi, practitioners of feng shui believe our own life force then can be in balance and flow, thus improving our health, relationships, and prosperity.
To many, feng shui is dismissed as a “woo-woo” pseudoscience that has no basis in reality. And, perhaps, in the ancient terminology used, it does appear that way. However, when you look at the basics of feng shui, there is an overlap with what we are now learning about through various studies in neuroarchitecture and biophilic design.
Feng shui incorporates five elements into it’s system: water, wood, fire, earth, and metal, and classifies all the materials in our interiors into one of these five elemental categories.
They’re not to be taken literally in all cases but can be: an oak dresser is an obvious wood element; mirrors are considered a water element. At the simplest level in the feng shui system, a type of energetic map, called the bagua, is laid over the floor plan of a domicile or a room (reinforcing fractal patterns, with qi exhibiting repeating patterns at scale), outlining what energy falls where. From there, shifting, mixing, combining, or subtracting materials in the space is how you improve the flow of qi. In practice, this looks like rearranging furniture, reworking types of surfaces, adding or subtracting potted plants, pillows, symbolic décor, or mirrors, and/or changing the colors.
To use an example that directly relates to both neuro-supportive design and feng shui, let’s discuss the “Command Position”. In feng shui, the command position is the spot in any room that allows you the best view of the door and the entire room. Usually it is the location in any room that allows you to have your back to a wall, and is not lined up directly with the main exit. The Command Position is the ideal location in any room for the place where you spend the most time, such as the bed, sofa, or your desk. According to feng shui principles, the command position promotes a sense of security, calm, ease, and focus.
Comparing this with neuroscience, studies have shown that when rooms are arranged in the traditional feng shui command position, they have the neurological response of reducing markers of stress, including anxiety, lowered levels of cortisol, improves sleep quality through increasing the release of oxytocin and serotonin. Contrastingly, when your back is to the activity in a room (such as a kitchen arranged with the stove against a wall, so your back is to the room and everyone in it), your brain is much more likely to produce adrenaline and cortisol, hormones responsible for fear, anxiety, and stress.
Through the contextual and cultural terminology of improving the flow of “energy”, it is easy for the more skeptical western world to claim a system like feng shui is bogus. But now that neuroscience is showing that our built environments may have much more of an impact on us than previously considered, how does that make you feel about systems like feng shui?
With a couple of decades of feng shui practice under my belt, I’ve directly experienced the way that a well-arranged and well-designed room can feel refreshing and energizing. I am happy to see that there is now science that backs up the fundamental ideals of feng shui. I think it shows how intelligent humans can be about our unseen worlds when we take the time to be present and pay attention to our surroundings and how our bodies react to them. These studies show that our brains react and make hormonal adjustments in response to our environments. Utilizing a system like feng shui allows for supportive shifts to our neurological function, and is enough to make positive changes in our lives immediately, and I find that very empowering. We can’t always choose where we live, but these studies are showing that when arranged in supportive ways, we do have some control over how we feel in our lived space.
. . .
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272494422000470?via%3Dihub
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00477/full
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/sdar/vol6/iss1/5/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4774049/
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/4305
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031938414003242?via%3Dihub
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/14/5/1292
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/feng-shui/
