Neuro-architecture Feng Shui Gone Brainy

Light, science & decor to balance your hormones…Raise or Lower your Ceilings with Color can make all the difference.

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first

time.”  T.S. Eliot “Little Gidding”

As designers, architects, and DIYers, we are in tune with the fact that some colors and designs are more pleasing to the eye than others. Neuro-architecture is the science that validates what we feel in our gut — that color, design, and placement have much deeper of an impact on us than surface appeal. Neuro-architecture, you could say, is Feng Shui gone “brainy”.

By exploring how aspects of architecture influence the way we live and work and relate, neuro-architecture takes Feng Shui into the scientific realm, providing right-brained proof for the ancient wisdom. Either way using this knowledge allows us to go deeper into the synergy between human and space.

Based on thousands of years of observation, Feng Shui is the Chinese art of designing spaces to affect human life; done properly a space becomes a synergistic partner in creating opportunity, harmony and health. Positioning objects, buildings, furniture, etc., is based on the flow of chi and the balance of energies, all of which have positive and negative effects on our health and ability to be effective.

Similarly, neuroarchitecture is the scientific study of the brain and its connection with design and placement. It explores how one’s environment can be a trigger for hormones that either promote happy and calm or add stress and anxiety. More than a marketing spin, Neuroarchitecture, at its most basic, looks at how we and our spaces are wired for success. (See Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture.)
There is quite a bit of research going on to investigate the connection between our minds and our habitats. Professor Joan Meyers-Levy of the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, for example, studies the effect space has on purchasing behavior, etc. Take for instance her findings that high ceilings activate sections of the right brain associated with freedom and abstract thinking. In low-ceiling-ed rooms, thought is more constrained.  [See "U of M marketing Prof perfects the science of the woo."]

Certainly from our own experiences most of us know that being in kitchen is evocative of feelings of comfort, homey-ness, and social pleasure. And, photos of cherished loved ones and treasured memories, and books that we’re fond of reading are also helpful in surrounding ourselves with love and keeping us grounded.

I can’t tell you how many times clients have said to me, “I have a beautiful Great Room with vaulted ceilings for entertaining but people always end up in my much smaller kitchen, what do I do?”  Why? One reason is intimate surroundings, another is that the food center is innately nourishing but that’s another post.

All of this applies to our next shopping trip to Ikea or your local paint dealer so we bring home the right stuff and put it in the right places.   I use this knowledge and wisdom when I design spaces because I know exactly how my designs will influence behavior, and I want to share it so that you can design your spaces to create positive benefit.
How space affects behavior: A look at Ceilings and Color

Ceiling height affects ability, mood and intimacy and is best inspire the activity to occur in that space.

According to Feng Shui, and now Neuro-architecture, high ceilings create higher order thinking, vision, ideas; low ceilings create detail thinking and task orientation. But how high is too high?  Feng Shui takes that question a step further and asks what else is influencing the space, including the people in it?  (Contact Fawn to discover your unique Feng Shui energy and how you influence your spaces and they influence you)

It is all about balance.  Design has affect on us and design misaligned with your goals could have the opposite effect creating tension, disharmony, and dis-ease.:  as the Chinese know, “The bigger the bedroom, the higher the divorce rate.”  We will innately, and unconsciously, seek to balance ourselves by moving to another space, however easily [leaving the room] or painfully [quitting the job, divorcing your spouse, etc.] it has to occur.
Too much space will create independence, lack of intimacy, inability to focus on details, we will not stay in those spaces very long, feeling too expanded and pulled out of our center (think of the expansive feeling of a symphony hall, a large library or a beautiful church).   The longer we spend in a place, the deeper the impact becomes embedded into our lives.  For instance, the large spaces of loft living were helpful to expand our sense of freedom but now the pendulum is swinging in the other direction as the new trend is to define and segment living spaces using color, area carpets, artwork and furnishings.
On the other end of that scale, too little space which will stifle us, make us sleepy, lethargic, eat more, overly detail-oriented, stunt growth opportunities, and basically “cramp our style.”
It is important to use all the rooms of your home, and with color and design we can make the rooms effective and honor our human “animal-body” wisdom to move in rhythm with our needs.
Raise (or lower) the roof!

Suggestions and tips for effectively raising or lowering your ceilings.

Raising Ceilings:

As much as you may want higher ceilings in certain rooms, it may not be in the budget to ’raise the roof.”   But to create expansion in your vision and ideas, here are effective design methods to raise your ceilings:

1. Mimic sky: paint your ceiling a soft, receding light blue/grey, like one of these colors:

• PPG Pittsburgh/Porter’s 348-2 Stratosphere
• The new PPG Atmospheric Collection ATC-62 Winter’s Breath is beautiful

2.  Fool the eye: Paint the wall and the ceiling the same color.  Our eye and brain quickly read edges to create a picture for us to recognize.  No difference in color means “no edge” to read and our brain then looks quickly for something else to define the space and create a picture for us. Don’t be afraid, just because the can says “ceiling white” doesn’t mean you have to have a ceiling that is white.

3.  Lighten Up: Add upward directed lighting by using torchiere or sconce lights.  Be careful with ‘cove’ lighting in the center of the room as this sometimes creates a cupola or light-house effect, making the perimeter of the room seem darker and drawing the center of the room too high—proportion is key here.

Lowering Ceilings:

To effectively ‘lower’ the ceiling to create intimacy, nourishment, sleep and detail awareness you can determine a height that is of ‘human scale’ [depending on how tall you are, somewhere between 8 and 9 feet will do nicely] but remember to look at the entire wall height and room because proportion is also important to perception.  You can ‘draw the line’ in a number of ways:

1.  Define “Heaven and Earth” –

• Align the window treatments and large artwork so that the upper edge effectively creates a line around the room.
• Use a color block—stop the top at the new ceiling line.

• • This is one way to get some rich color into your spaces without fully committing to an entire wall or room (once your risk it however, you will be enthralled by living with color.)
• If you have smaller artwork or pieces you love, highlight them or architectural features with a block of color that stops at the height where you would like to draw the ceiling.
• Place crown molding dropped a distance from the ceiling and paint the upper portion of the wall the same color as the ceiling. Paint the molding an accent color or the same color as the upper portion of the wall and ceiling.

2. Go dark. Painting a ceiling a very dark color will not always make it seem lower, a deep, sophisticated color like black, brown or aubergine can make it recede even further, but where you (once again) draw the line will define the ‘living space’ and it will create ambiance.

By adding Feng Shui knowledge to our design, our architectural resources expand exponentially and so does our ability to positively impact human interaction through meaningful design.

Check out the book Inquiry by Design by John Zeisel to learn more about neuroscience in architecture. It’s a fascinating read.

Fawn Chang, is a National Color and Design Consultant for PPG Pittsburgh/Porter Paints.  Interior Designer and Feng Shui Master, Fawn travels North America speaking on Color Trends in Architecture and Home Design, and Feng Shui.  Sign up for Fawn’s Newsletter and  visit her website at www.fawnchangdesigns.com