From Savannas to Settlements: Exploring Cognitive Foundations for the Design of Urban Spaces.

M Gordon Brown,Charles C Lee

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01607

Abstract

Urban configurations in developing countries have become the subject of urban design, with good design promoting economic benefits. Yet, the common practice of urban design lacks a principled scientific foundation. In this respect, cognitive neuroscience could provide a unique perspective and potential foundational insights regarding how embodied cognition links configuration with movement. Although the neural networks that underlie navigation abilities in the brain have been extensively studied, the manner in which these networks might best constrain urban configurations has not been examined specifically. Moreover, it remains an open issue whether the neurological development and functional topographies in the brain that could potentially constrain such urban configurations might also replicate the geometric structures of those environments that were the cradle of human evolution. We propose urban grid-form settlement patterns may be a result of the naturally evolved structures of the human brain. We suggest then that a potential agenda for experimentation and debate could focus on neurological underpinnings of movement choices in urban places. Such an agenda would benefit from bridging a gap between C.P. Snow’s two cultures, i.e., among architects and neuroscientists. Here, we provide a perspective to engender such further dialog on the design of embodied urban spaces and the potential neural systems that may constrain their design.

Highlights

Cities in developing nations lack well developed urban spatial form and infrastructures upon which they can build, but they have an opportunity to design and create them
How might urban design become more scientifically principled? From the perspective of the cognitive neuroscience, one might suggest that a consideration of the natural evolution of the human brain serves as a likely arena from which to consider the design of urban environments
The question here might be construed as whether the various navigational networks in the human brain, independently or together, have adaptations suited for particular urban designs? A goal of effective urban design might be to understand and evoke those perceptual and cognitive processes innate to the evolved circuitry of the brain, as considered below

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Cities in developing nations lack well developed urban spatial form and infrastructures upon which they can build, but they have an opportunity to design and create them. “Urban form lasts,” such that designing cities correctly as they grow and develop is of vital importance Whether urban population growth will be managed to bring improved social, economic, and aesthetic benefits to new and existing urban populations depends critically on spatial forms that sustain economic and social order. This requires understanding relationships between urban spatial form, human movement and their cognitive underpinnings. The received models, metaphors and rules guiding architectural design may not be appropriate nor principled on the basis of those factors most conducive to human perception and cognition

From Savannas to Settlements

EXPLORING NEURAL CONSTRAINTS ON URBAN FORM

THE HEURISTICS OF URBAN FORM

CONCLUSION

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS