How Design Shapes Brains: Neuroarchitecture and the Future of Public Health

For decades, we’ve said that the design of the physical environment affects health and well-being. It’s true—but incomplete. What the recently published “Building Brains” report from the Building Brains Coalition makes unmistakably clear is this: interior and exterior environments also shape brains.

That’s not metaphor. It’s biology.

Light, sound, temperature, proportion, texture, and views of nature are inputs to the nervous system. They influence stress hormones, attention, memory, sleep, mood, and emotional regulation.

The Importance of Neuroarchitecture for Brain Health

Over time, poorly designed environments accumulate what scientists call allostatic load—the physiological wear-and-tear of chronic stress. The result is diminished cognitive capacity, emotional fatigue, and poorer health.

In other words, the physical environment is already acting on our bodies and minds every day. This is what makes neuroarchitecture—sometimes called brain-informed design—so important.

It reframes architecture and interior design not as aesthetic or operational exercises, but as public health interventions. Every school, hospital, medical office, workplace, senior living community, and neighborhood is quietly influencing how well we think, feel, and function.

Brain Health is Now a Global Economic Concer

The numbers are staggering.

More than three billion people live with neurological conditions. Brain disorders cost trillions annually. As our economy becomes increasingly knowledge-based, “brain capital”—the combination of cognitive capacity and mental health—has become a defining resource.

At the same time, climate change is placing unprecedented stress on human nervous systems. Heat, noise, air pollution, displacement, and disaster-related trauma impair cognition and emotional regulation.

This means that climate change is not just an environmental crisis. It is also a brain health crisis.

Space Not Experienced Just Visually

The “Building Brains” report reminds us that we do not experience space just visually. We inhabit environments with all our senses at once.

Sound changes how we see. Light changes how we feel. Materials alter our sense of safety and warmth. A low ceiling can feel intimate—or oppressive.

A view of trees (remember Roger Ulrich’s study?) can measurably lower heart rate within minutes. Even subtle choices—gloss versus matte, hard versus soft, warm versus cool—shape stress and attention.

Beauty Not a Luxury

Art and architectural quality activate reward and emotional regulation networks in the brain. Research shows that exposure to beauty improves outcomes in healthcare, education, and work. Qualities like coherence, “hominess,” and fascination have measurable neural effects.

Beauty isn’t ornamental. It’s therapeutic.

The implications are profound across every scale of design:

• Urban: Green infrastructure and noise control reduce population-level stress.
• Street: Human-scale proportions prevent cognitive overload.
• Building: Massing and material harmony influence whether a place feels threatening or welcoming.
• Interior: Daylight, acoustics, and biophilia directly modulate focus, creativity, and calm.

In healthcare and senior living, we’ve been talking about how design of the physical environment can, and does support well-being for more than 30 years—perhaps even longer if you go back to the days of Florence Nightingale.

Now we know it also shapes brains.

So, are we going to design our buildings and communities with that knowledge? I hope so.

Because is not just good design.

It is public health.

Note

The report, “Building Brains: Exploring the Intersection of Neuroscience and Architecture to Position the Built Environment as a Strategy for Brain Health,” is a crowdsourced living document that will evolve over time.

The Building Brains Coalition was founded by the Brain Capital Alliance, Center for BrainHealth, Center for Advanced Design Research and Evaluation (CADRE) HKS, and Rice University’s Baker Institute Neuro-Policy Program. If you’re interested in joining the coalition, please visit the coalition’s website.

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Photo: 166076793 | Brain © Alexandra Barbu | Dreamstime.com