A multidisciplinary research was carried out to reach an improved understanding of the connection between the geometry of space and human emotions. The research develops a framework and methodology to empirically examine and measure human reaction to various types of architectural space geometries. It involves two stages of investigations in which participants experience four spaces characterized by different geometries. Their reaction to the spaces was investigated by means of both qualitative and quantitative methods, which involved questionnaires in the first experiment and advanced sensors and data analysis in a second experiment. The experiments, which employ new virtual reality, electroencephalogram and data analysis methods, confirm the developed methodology. In the first stage of the investigation, participants showed different types of responses and preferences towards spaces. Results of the second stage’s experiment showed a difference in our mental reaction to different geometries of space.

The paper presents a new approach to examining the connection between human emotions and architectural space, focusing on the aspect of geometry. It examines how emotional reactions to geometrical manipulations within architectural space can be empirically measured and quantified. By using physiological sensors, such as EEG (Electroencephalography), GSR (Galvanic Skin Response), and eye-tracking (ET), we were able to collect data from participants experiencing virtual environments, differentiated by criteria of scale, proportion, protrusion and curvature. Findings suggest that these criteria influence the user's emotional state. The developed methodology, which combines both qualitative and quantitative measurements, shows changes of interest, both ‘positive’ and ‘negative’, suspected to indicate different emotional states.

Research is revealing an increasing number of positive effects of nature for humans. At the same time, biodiversity in cities, where most humans live, is often low or in decline. Tangible solutions are needed to increase urban biodiversity. Architecture is a key discipline that has considerable influence on the built‐up area of cities, thereby influencing urban biodiversity. In general, architects do not design for biodiversity. Conversely, urban conservation planning generally focuses on the limited space free of buildings and does not embrace architecture as an important discipline for the creation of urban green infrastructure. In this paper, we argue that the promotion of biodiversity needs to become a key driving force of architectural design. This requires a new multi‐species design paradigm that considers both human and non‐human needs. Such a design approach needs to maintain the standards of the architectural profession, including the aim to increase the well‐being of humans in buildings. Yet, it also needs to add other stakeholders, organisms such as animals, plants and even microbiota. New buildings designed for humans and other inhabitants can then increase biodiversity in cities and also increase the benefits that humans can derive from close proximity to nature. We review the challenges that this new design approach poses for both architecture and ecology and show that multi‐species‐design goes beyond existing approaches in architecture and ecology. The new design approach needs to make ecological knowledge available to the architectural design process, enabling practitioners to find architectural solutions that can facilitate synergies from a multi‐species perspective. We propose that a first step in creating such a multi‐species habitat is the design of buildings with an ecolope, a multi criteria‐designed building envelope that takes into account the needs of diverse organisms. Because there is no framework to design such an ecolope, we illustrate how multi‐species design needs to draw on knowledge from ecology, as well as architecture, and design computation. We discuss how architectures designed via a multi‐species approach can be an important step in establishing beneficial human–nature relationships in cities, and contribute to human well‐being and biodiversity conservation. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

The paper presents a new enumerative method and tool to quantify and compare the potential contribution of kinetic and static external shading elements in buildings, in terms of dynamic measurement of daylighting. The suggested method and tool may help designers to examine the impact of various louver design and operation alternatives in the early stages of the design process. It also allows comparing the potential contribution of different dynamic louver movement scenarios to internal illuminance. This can help designers to better evaluate and compare different dynamic systems, which can be more cost effective. The method and tool are tested on a case study of an office building in a Mediterranean climate, by calculating and comparing the values of useful daylight internal illuminances in static, seasonally adjusted and dynamic louver setup scenarios in comparison to those without louvers. The results of the case study illustrate the contribution of the suggested method and tool to designing for high useful daylight levels. The case study’s illuminance evaluation shows an increase of −1.82% to 7.99%, −1.4% to 11.67% and 10.86% to 33.6% in level of the adapted useful daylight illuminances in static, seasonally adjusted and dynamic external shadings scenarios correspondingly in comparison to the no external shading scenario.