Episode 4 – Architecture and Psychology
By Natasha Tennant, on 19 June 2021
In today’s episode host Natasha Tennant is joined by co-host Mahika Gautam, a first-year architectural and interdisciplinary student at the Bartlett, UCL. Passionate about creating truly inclusive public spaces by studying the relationship between neuroscience and the built environment.
Today we are lucky to be joined by Fiona Zisch, who researches the cognition, experience, and reciprocity of architectural space, bodies, and movement. She works between the Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience at UCL and the Bartlett School of Architecture. She also teaches undergraduate Experimental Psychology at UCL. Fiona speaks at and organises international architecture and neuroscience conferences and festivals, has collaborated on a number of multidisciplinary research projects, and acts as a consultant for architecture and technology companies. She has published papers and book chapters in an array of research fields.
In this episode, we explore interdisciplinarity and through examples explore the interrelation of psychology and architecture, and how understanding the former can improve the way we design spaces. We discuss the role of memory and imagination in our understanding of spaces and ask how social media has impacted the way we represent buildings today? Which led nicely into a discussion on how we cognise different representations of space, how we are able to orientate ourselves in cities which are in constant flux and how we differentiate spaces that look exactly the same.
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With thanks to our guest Fiona Zisch, hosts Natasha Tennant and Mahika Gautam; music production by Lorenzo Angoli and graphic design by Ziyan Zhao