Hi. Maybe it's just spring but I suddenly came to realise that I'm interested in psychology, all kinds of human behavior, sexual expression and whatever connections it makes to architecture.
What do you think of that and maybe you can recommend anything to read.
The closest I came across is Palaasma The Eyes of the Skin. I also think of reading about Hitchcock and how he organised space in his movies. I find that interesting and meaningful. When I think of movies, that's definetely David Linch.
interesting since Juhani also shares your interest in Hitchcock and writes about it elsewhere. You should also check out Rudolph Arnheim's The Dynamics of Architectural Form.
coming from a psych background and into architecture, i'd recommend these are pretty good intro books into human psychology which don't directly tie into architecture, but definitely prove to be relevant in terms of the design process:
ramachandran's a brief tour of human consciousness
pinker's blank slate
pinker's the language instinct
also careful you don't lump everything into a psychological pizza. i'd say of what makes lynch unique is almost anti-psychological where objects and actions don't arise from a transparent sense of psychological determinism as much as from a totemic./talismanic obscurity. but a lot that lynch shares with others is a facination with dark 'aberrant' psychology (and in a sense, aberrant psychology is the apotheosis of psychology...since pyschologists exist mostly for fucked up people)
You could try searching for 'environmental psychology'
I found some interesting books relating to notions of comfort/personal space and the built environment earlier on this year by looking around in the environmental psychology world.
If I happen to remember any of the titles I will pass them along.
and if i recall correctly, the eyes of the skin has very little to do with psychology. haptic this haptic that, but no explicitly psychological forces at work.
hitchcock probably is your most potent citation. anyway, the modern thriller, pretty much starting with hitchcock, explicitly uses text book psychology for its leitmotifs. fucked up/domineering mother, absent/non chalant father, sociopathic tendencies galore. sometimes the anti-hero/antagonist is even a psychologist her/himself. think hannibal lecter or sharon stone (a psychology graduate) in basic instinct. this is thriller doubled; not only is the antagonist fucked up but s/he has the education to fuck other people up, psychology staring at itself in a mirror. anyway, spaces and their cinematographic depiction, in a thriller, perform figurative function, metaphoric (if the shot of the space reflects the antagonist's mindset) or metonymic (if the space, for instance that of her/his childhood, brings about the antagonist's sociopathy - also a haunted space is an example of a metonymic relationship between the haunting spirit and the haunted space...in some films, the spirit and the space are confounded in the idea of an evil active space that is the imprint of a previous crime).
you're getting predigested psychology out of it, with the countless misinterpretations that every artist/architect makes when he is not near completely familiar with the subject at hand.
go with primary sources. learn to understand those. then take a stab at hitchcock and crew.
You may want to visit "Sensing Architecture" -- a website with useful articles for architects that relate to architectural design, neuroscience and new technology.
I produce all of the content there and I think you will find much of it interesting if you are curious about the intersection between architecture and psychology...
it's funny that Irigaray is considered "in" today since she was "in" fifteen years ago when I was an undergrad philosophy major. I guess there's a lag there where architecture is concerned.
Vidler is a good suggestion as well, but be sure to mine the footnotes and bibliography for other things to grab on to.
I still say go back to the source (or one of them) with Arnheim.
(and it is also true that Juhani is more phenomenological than psychological -- meaning he is more interested in the external than the internal, the experience over the rationalization of it -- but there are some great things to think about there as well that aren't too far off your mark)
Well, I've just seen Zizek's The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, and was shocked how little I know of those things he's talking about. I suspected something but never had a chance to formulate it to myself so clearly. I'm interested in sexual deviancy which I believe is an important part of sexual life and relationships. It's hard to tell exactly how it's going to make me a better designer, I'm just trying to use it in my work so not to waste it. I read Freud but wasn't impressed much. I thought there's more in it than just penis everywhere.
well, if it's sexual deviancy you're after, look no further than Georges Bataille. There's even a selected writings volume called "Against Architecture"
I second Steven Pinker's Blank Slate, for a good discussion of what is innate and what is learned in human experience (designing for everybody, designing for a specific group or culture)
Edward T. Hall's Hidden Dimension is the best resource I have found on the subject, he is the 'father' of the proxemics field, studying the spatial relationship of people and objects and their impact on the mind.
John Zeisel has good books on environment behavior architecture, An Inquiry by Design in particular looks at an alzheimer's community focused around understanding the sensitivities of the disease.
Jorge Luis Borges has some of the most interesting psychological insights into architecture that I have ever read. Bachelard is fascinating to read but is very dense and if you are just starting to explore this field there are many other texts that are easier to digest and will keep you on the right track.
Eyes of the Skin I thought was a little thin and less robust than many of the texts I have come across.
Albert-László Barabási's Linked is the best exploration I have seen of network architecture and systems, very helpful for understanding how social networks impact your environmental procession, ties in well with Hall's Secret Language.
From there it depends on whether you are going towards cognitive studies or bringing it into neuroscience and data world. There is a cool architecture firm that I have seen popping up in Cali that does Post Occupancy Evaluations and is partnering with UCSD doing PET scans and all sorts of fun shit to find out what makes us enjoy certain types of spaces.
Anyways, this is the kind of thing I have been studying for years so if you want to talk more about it then shoot me an e-mail.
look at rudolph arnheim's article buildings as percepts. anything by him would be a good place to start. also, the russian rationalists were very heavily interested in the psychological aspects of architectural form.
Thank you guys for the amount of material for reading. It seems more than promising. If someone would also like to share their thoughts of David Lynch in this context I'll be more than happy.
Limited research has been done on the effects of plants on human productivity levels, but what's out there is promising. It's relevant to architecture since plants require light (but not necessarily natural light), insulate, change humidity levels, and a million other things that should be considered during building design.
It's also easier to measure worker productivity levels than, say, sexuality, and a psychological perspective should try to measure something and do some kind of science at some point.
That's something I would love to study in graduate school if I were still on the neuroscience track. If I don't like architecture school, I will probably try to find a neuroscience or psychology phd program that will let me research stuff like the effects of plants on mental health.
One of my profs has dedicated many years to studying Freud, architecture, and the links between the two. She just published a book (Never Speak With Your Mouth Full) which is unlike any book you've probably ever seen or read:
I'm that bastard who didn't read all the responses before posting, so sorry if someone's already covered some of these recommendations.
Not a book, but a great quarterly update for this sort of info is Research Design Connections. They basically scan a bunch of related journals and condense into (usually) practical info for architects and designers.
Less effective but free is the InformeDesign project out of UMN. It's a noble effort and much more expansive than RDC's archives, but actionable info is not really there.
The ID field seems to be much further along on this subject than typical ARCH types. I would recommend Don Norman's Design of Everyday Things(the working title was Psychology of Everyday Things) and a new website I just stumbled on called Design with Intent.
Oh yeah... if you want to learn about how to contribute to the field I would suggest Zeisel's Inquiry by Design. It's more text book than entertaining read, but pretty much hits what you need to know about tracking building performance and how people interact with it.
If you're interested in architecture (or just design in general) that was influenced by its sexually deviant designer, I point you to Carlo Mollino: http://www.designboom.com/world/mollino/
I'd really suggest spending some time reading about him, as the article above doesn't really even touch the surface of what he was all about... for instance, he kept a bachelor pad where he would convince young women to visit and let him take nude photos of him (and then they'd have 'relations'....).... quite a bit of his furniture is derived from his foot fetish, but it's not cheesy like you'd imagine.
Jun 12, 09 12:12 pm ·
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Psychology and architecture
Hi. Maybe it's just spring but I suddenly came to realise that I'm interested in psychology, all kinds of human behavior, sexual expression and whatever connections it makes to architecture.
What do you think of that and maybe you can recommend anything to read.
The closest I came across is Palaasma The Eyes of the Skin. I also think of reading about Hitchcock and how he organised space in his movies. I find that interesting and meaningful. When I think of movies, that's definetely David Linch.
Any thoughts, please share :)
interesting since Juhani also shares your interest in Hitchcock and writes about it elsewhere. You should also check out Rudolph Arnheim's The Dynamics of Architectural Form.
coming from a psych background and into architecture, i'd recommend these are pretty good intro books into human psychology which don't directly tie into architecture, but definitely prove to be relevant in terms of the design process:
ramachandran's a brief tour of human consciousness
pinker's blank slate
pinker's the language instinct
all three are fantastic books.
also careful you don't lump everything into a psychological pizza. i'd say of what makes lynch unique is almost anti-psychological where objects and actions don't arise from a transparent sense of psychological determinism as much as from a totemic./talismanic obscurity. but a lot that lynch shares with others is a facination with dark 'aberrant' psychology (and in a sense, aberrant psychology is the apotheosis of psychology...since pyschologists exist mostly for fucked up people)
You could try searching for 'environmental psychology'
I found some interesting books relating to notions of comfort/personal space and the built environment earlier on this year by looking around in the environmental psychology world.
If I happen to remember any of the titles I will pass them along.
Have fun.
and if i recall correctly, the eyes of the skin has very little to do with psychology. haptic this haptic that, but no explicitly psychological forces at work.
hitchcock probably is your most potent citation. anyway, the modern thriller, pretty much starting with hitchcock, explicitly uses text book psychology for its leitmotifs. fucked up/domineering mother, absent/non chalant father, sociopathic tendencies galore. sometimes the anti-hero/antagonist is even a psychologist her/himself. think hannibal lecter or sharon stone (a psychology graduate) in basic instinct. this is thriller doubled; not only is the antagonist fucked up but s/he has the education to fuck other people up, psychology staring at itself in a mirror. anyway, spaces and their cinematographic depiction, in a thriller, perform figurative function, metaphoric (if the shot of the space reflects the antagonist's mindset) or metonymic (if the space, for instance that of her/his childhood, brings about the antagonist's sociopathy - also a haunted space is an example of a metonymic relationship between the haunting spirit and the haunted space...in some films, the spirit and the space are confounded in the idea of an evil active space that is the imprint of a previous crime).
hitchcock is still a secondary source.
you're getting predigested psychology out of it, with the countless misinterpretations that every artist/architect makes when he is not near completely familiar with the subject at hand.
go with primary sources. learn to understand those. then take a stab at hitchcock and crew.
yes, I'm interested in the aberrant side of psychology. Just trying to make something useful out of it.
look at anthony vidler's 'architectural uncanny' and 'warped space' - they are both good ways into the area.
there is some good material in the freud - lacan - zizek axis, but there is plenty of silly stuff as well.
start with oedipus rex before you start with freud??
what's "in" today is Irigaray
your question is lacking, what is it that you want to understand in psychology to make you a better designer?
(what used to be called) The Dick Manifesto is indeed a psychological, cathartic investigation of architectural aberrance.
e.g.
e.g.
e.g.
e.g.
e.g.
You may want to visit "Sensing Architecture" -- a website with useful articles for architects that relate to architectural design, neuroscience and new technology.
I produce all of the content there and I think you will find much of it interesting if you are curious about the intersection between architecture and psychology...
Here is the link: http://sensingarchitecture.com
it's funny that Irigaray is considered "in" today since she was "in" fifteen years ago when I was an undergrad philosophy major. I guess there's a lag there where architecture is concerned.
Vidler is a good suggestion as well, but be sure to mine the footnotes and bibliography for other things to grab on to.
I still say go back to the source (or one of them) with Arnheim.
(and it is also true that Juhani is more phenomenological than psychological -- meaning he is more interested in the external than the internal, the experience over the rationalization of it -- but there are some great things to think about there as well that aren't too far off your mark)
i find irigaray self-contradicting. but i haven't spent much time with her.
archiwhat, can you be more specific? it's just such a huge field. have you read anything already?
Well, I've just seen Zizek's The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, and was shocked how little I know of those things he's talking about. I suspected something but never had a chance to formulate it to myself so clearly. I'm interested in sexual deviancy which I believe is an important part of sexual life and relationships. It's hard to tell exactly how it's going to make me a better designer, I'm just trying to use it in my work so not to waste it. I read Freud but wasn't impressed much. I thought there's more in it than just penis everywhere.
well, if it's sexual deviancy you're after, look no further than Georges Bataille. There's even a selected writings volume called "Against Architecture"
and Camoflage these might be helpful?
I second Steven Pinker's Blank Slate, for a good discussion of what is innate and what is learned in human experience (designing for everybody, designing for a specific group or culture)
Edward T. Hall's Hidden Dimension is the best resource I have found on the subject, he is the 'father' of the proxemics field, studying the spatial relationship of people and objects and their impact on the mind.
John Zeisel has good books on environment behavior architecture, An Inquiry by Design in particular looks at an alzheimer's community focused around understanding the sensitivities of the disease.
Jorge Luis Borges has some of the most interesting psychological insights into architecture that I have ever read. Bachelard is fascinating to read but is very dense and if you are just starting to explore this field there are many other texts that are easier to digest and will keep you on the right track.
Eyes of the Skin I thought was a little thin and less robust than many of the texts I have come across.
Albert-László Barabási's Linked is the best exploration I have seen of network architecture and systems, very helpful for understanding how social networks impact your environmental procession, ties in well with Hall's Secret Language.
From there it depends on whether you are going towards cognitive studies or bringing it into neuroscience and data world. There is a cool architecture firm that I have seen popping up in Cali that does Post Occupancy Evaluations and is partnering with UCSD doing PET scans and all sorts of fun shit to find out what makes us enjoy certain types of spaces.
Anyways, this is the kind of thing I have been studying for years so if you want to talk more about it then shoot me an e-mail.
...I hate my job.
Oh, almost forgot,
Diller and Scofidio's 'Flesh' is invaluable.
look at rudolph arnheim's article buildings as percepts. anything by him would be a good place to start. also, the russian rationalists were very heavily interested in the psychological aspects of architectural form.
Thank you guys for the amount of material for reading. It seems more than promising. If someone would also like to share their thoughts of David Lynch in this context I'll be more than happy.
zizek's 'perverts guide' is based very heavily on Lacanian psychoanalysis. Lacan abstracted and generalised Freud's work.
Limited research has been done on the effects of plants on human productivity levels, but what's out there is promising. It's relevant to architecture since plants require light (but not necessarily natural light), insulate, change humidity levels, and a million other things that should be considered during building design.
It's also easier to measure worker productivity levels than, say, sexuality, and a psychological perspective should try to measure something and do some kind of science at some point.
That's something I would love to study in graduate school if I were still on the neuroscience track. If I don't like architecture school, I will probably try to find a neuroscience or psychology phd program that will let me research stuff like the effects of plants on mental health.
I think there are some articles on this site:
http://greenplantsforgreenbuildings.org/
http://greenplantsforgreenbuildings.org/pdf/Lohr%20-%20plants%20and%20productivity.pdf
One of my profs has dedicated many years to studying Freud, architecture, and the links between the two. She just published a book (Never Speak With Your Mouth Full) which is unlike any book you've probably ever seen or read:
http://umanitoba.ca/rdot/faculties/architecture/DoApress.html
Read a review here (I think): http://www.umanitoba.ca/schools/art/galleryoneoneone/nada.html
i gather your tutor is not a vegetarian then.
Haha, I think you might be right.
I don't remember if this was posted in the news section a while back, but might be worth looking at:
How the city hurts your brain
I'm that bastard who didn't read all the responses before posting, so sorry if someone's already covered some of these recommendations.
Not a book, but a great quarterly update for this sort of info is Research Design Connections. They basically scan a bunch of related journals and condense into (usually) practical info for architects and designers.
Less effective but free is the InformeDesign project out of UMN. It's a noble effort and much more expansive than RDC's archives, but actionable info is not really there.
The ID field seems to be much further along on this subject than typical ARCH types. I would recommend Don Norman's Design of Everyday Things(the working title was Psychology of Everyday Things) and a new website I just stumbled on called Design with Intent.
If you're really interested in this it would probably help to get involved with EDRA (aka Environmental Design Research Association).
Oh yeah... if you want to learn about how to contribute to the field I would suggest Zeisel's Inquiry by Design. It's more text book than entertaining read, but pretty much hits what you need to know about tracking building performance and how people interact with it.
If you're interested in architecture (or just design in general) that was influenced by its sexually deviant designer, I point you to Carlo Mollino: http://www.designboom.com/world/mollino/
I'd really suggest spending some time reading about him, as the article above doesn't really even touch the surface of what he was all about... for instance, he kept a bachelor pad where he would convince young women to visit and let him take nude photos of him (and then they'd have 'relations'....).... quite a bit of his furniture is derived from his foot fetish, but it's not cheesy like you'd imagine.
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