可变的心智：被监禁者的神经轮廓

来自哈佛大学GSD的Brandon Cuffy的毕业设计。

Mutable Minds: Neural Proxies for the Imprisoned  By Brandon Cuffy

环境与自我，历史上这两个交织的概念在后工业化时代对大规模生产制造的无上推崇背景下，出现了越来越多的分歧。回顾历史，原始房屋的设计也遵循着环境与居住件的和谐，而现今，却走上了对立面。日新月异的合成材料，全球化的雷同环境空间已司空见惯。最近，这一趋势有所反转。空间的身份与表达，公共影响和人性化体验，还有可持续性原则等都受到前所未有的重视。此外，神经学科学家最近开发出的功能磁共振成像机器可以准确的定位出人脑皮层中的某个部分随时间变化是如何反应的。这种在意自我与环境的关联能提供积极意义。神经可塑性曾被认为只存在于幼儿成长关键时期，但现在却以证明是一个持续活动直至成年的长期过程。对于我们的建设环境，建筑师应该从一个全新的角度进行考虑，产生可以影响社会，经济，心理的新框架。想法的转变将为建筑师的工作带来直观的改变。研究和技术的严谨文档可作为一个基准来定义和发展更广阔的建筑，无论从历史和现在的经验理解上。

“参数”可以为人服务用来优化以及可持续发展。神经元不断的在我们人类所移动的环境记忆背景下进行反应，创造自我认知并产生行为。而这种关系可以被运用，用来预测行为，提供人们所需和进行自我的修整。这绝非单纯的控制，而是设计。找出日常生活中惯用的神经系统模式，对其强化，可激发不同的神经过程，产生新的记忆，想法，以及环境体验感。神经科学家与建筑师之间的合作已得观测证据，在建筑师设计的令人回味空间中移动能有积极性的影响。相反，这一运用也可以实施在监狱这样位于偏远地区的混凝土建筑中，对犯人的权利，感觉还有回忆进行剥离。这个毕业设计就是将监狱作为情景发生地，通过设计影响大脑认知，进行试验。

Environment and self, concepts which have historically been considered interwoven have been increasingly divergent in the postindustrial society, which has given primacy to the mass produced tectonic. Historically, synergies between environment and habitation initiated the first architectural act in the primitive hut, highlighting the direct relationship between self and the habited environment; the need for shelter. Though, the genesis of the architectural act began in this way, one can say it reached its antithesis with the advent of the modernist aesthetic which privileged the primacy of the tectonic. In addition, the whimsical synthetic material culture afforded by the assembly line gave way to globally pervasive materials and the subsequent rise of globalization,

creating architectural environments of non-identify space. Can one begin to reassert the identity space as a means of identifying self? Currently, trends are reversing. Designers and architects have made strong claims about the impact of buildings and spaces on the psychological and physical well-being of its inhabitants, notably humanist and phenomenological thinkers. Given the increasing quantification of a wide spectrum of building criteria and characteristics (best exemplified by the importance given recently to metrics of sustainability) contemporary architects are pushed beyond

philosophical claims, and called upon to consider more rigorous biometric parameters as frameworks for their design. In addition, neuroscientists and the recent development of functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) machines has made it possible to accurately locate human cortical responses to space in specific loci of the brain, and how these responses change over time. It is here at this recursive loop between self and context, where I interject the concept of neuroplasticity and its implications in the mediation of the active role of architecture in the definition of self. Neuroplasticity, was formerly thought to only be present in young children during their critical period, however, in the past two decades has been proven to be a continuing active process through adulthood. Tasked with the design of our built environment, architects now must consider a new facet of design, in which the neurologically considered space can curate new social, economic, and psychological conditions yielding a new framework of spatial intentions. Conditions afforded by these new ideas alter the intuitive conditions within which the architect works. The rigorous documentation in these studies and technologies offer the designer a datum to develop empirical understanding of the broader sensibilities of architecture, both historically and currently.

The “parameter” can then gain in addition to its use for optimization and sustainable criteria, one of human synergies and affordances. As neurons constantly fire action potentials between one another in the context of our environment to reference memories, facilitate movement; create self-perception, etc., the resultant behavior is the outcome of these neuron firing patters. Ideas of projective design strategies can create a relationship between self and artifact in such a manner as to predict and achieve desired or rehabilitative behavior. One’s control over another is not the goal, however, with this knowledge; one can design for what one wishes to be. Closely examining and augmenting neurological proxies which one uses in their daily lives, to trigger non familiar neurological processes; one can foster new memories, thoughts, and relationships with their physical and sociological context. Collaborations between neuroscientists and architects have yielded observational evidence of the increased well-being of individuals, moving beyond the rhetoric of architects which claim the evocative intentions of designed space. The material and the sensory foster the enhancement of human life in the above stated examples, and in many more, however, the ill considerations of the chemical augmentations influenced by habited space can create radically different neuronal activity that can produce volatile social scenarios. I speak of the physical and social extraction of the non-compliant population from society, and placement into the total institution, prison. This abrupt isolation is often times in remote regions of geography and occurs in the neutralist of concrete structures, stripping prisoners of rights, a rich sensorium, and recollection, which has been the impetus for degenerative neurological and social conditions of the imprisoned. This thesis examines the prison as a theater of neurological potentials for the ideasspeculated above, through designed cognitive stimulation guided by our new found knowledge of the brain. Returning to the generative intent of prisons can be brought about by a new literature of practice between architects and neuroscientist to address the ambivalent condition of contemporary imprisonment.