Seeing stars – and building for your brain

Seeing stars

Bugs Bunny always had stars spinning around his head following a bash with a hammer or running into a wall.

They magically disappeared as he brushed himself off and set off for another adventure.

But that spinning-head feeling does not always go away so fast for you and I.

My beloved Lou has been diagnosed with Post-Concussion Syndrome, a cluster of physiological symptoms including dizziness that affects up to one in five people after a fall.

You don’t need to be recovering from a head injury, though.

Around 4% of us regularly feel dizzy and unsteady on our feet- a condition known as Persistent Postural-Perceptual Dizziness (or PPPD for short).

Medication, migraines, stress or damage to the ear can all increase your risk, but people who are super-sensitive to sensory inputs are more likely to develop PPPD – Persistent postural perceptual dizziness is on a spectrum in the general population, Visually-induced dizziness is associated with sensitivity and avoidance across all senses.

How can lighting help?

1. Keep it simple.  Your eyes and vestibular system in your ears are constantly working out which way is up, what’s moving and what’s staying still. Spaces that create confusion or overload, like navigating a busy supermarket aisle, a corridor with high-contrast patterns of light and shade or architectural features lit from below, are all likely to trigger that upside-down feeling for sensitive folk – Persistent postural perceptual dizziness is on a spectrum in the general population.
2. Keep it light. Photophobia, or light sensivity, is a common complaint in PPPD, so it’s tempting to close the curtains and hide away in the gloom. But your eyes get used to the dark, making the problem even worse. Cool blue wavelengths tend to trigger the strongest neural response. The vestibular charity VEDA suggests blue-blocking glasses – Best Migraine Glasses For Dizziness and Vertigo. Choosing warmer light sources, with dimming controls is a good low-tech place to start – MD Roundtable: Diagnosing and Treating Photophobia.
3. Set your body clock. There’s a link between sleep disorders and PPPD, which in turn is associated with mild cognitive impairment. Interestingly, the vestibular system seems to play a critical role in setting your body clock – one study used a rotating chair to induce dizziness and found a significant disruption to the natural sleep-wake cycle – Exploration of Circadian Rhythms in Patients with Bilateral Vestibular Loss, Effect of vestibular stimulation using a rotatory chair in human rest/activity rhythm. Making sure you get enough light during the day (and darkness at night) to set your body clock will help you to keep your head – and keep your feet on the ground – Sleep disturbance and cognitive dysfunction in patients with persistent postural and perceptual dizziness.

Boys Toys at Digital Construction Week…

Three themes – and some questions

Programmes, not projects – playbooks and pathways for feedback and learning

Platforms and protocols  – interoperability and access for accountability and collaboration

BIM modelling for optimisation and compliance- pushing design maturity upstream and enabling off-site construction

But…

Lots of dashboards – but who’s in the driving seat?

Digital twins derisk – but where’s the reality check?

Mind the gap – cost is king and time is money but where’s the value for the user?

Neuroarchitecture in Valencia

All set for IALD Europe in Valencia – some of the topics I’m planning to explore…

You and I are just vectors for your genes, optimised to propagate: produce fit offspring and eat without getting eaten.

Your brain response is like the dashboard on a car – a real-time indicator of what’s going on under the bonnet. 

And, just like a driver you’re peering through the windscreen comparing that data with sounds, scents and vibrations from the road to piece together a picture of what’s out there, what’s coming up and who else is travelling too. And just like different types of drivers, you might be the person who slows down when it rains, while your partner will overtake on a blind bend in the fog. 

What does that mean for the way we design spaces?

1. Spaces signal behaviour. Just as you’ll (hopefully) drive differently on a four-lane highway and a winding country lane, your posture and gait, tone of voice, eye movements, reaction times, and heart rate will shift in response to brighter and more open – or dim and enclosed spaces.  Behaviours like willingness to disclose personal information and help others, or help yourself to another helping of dessert, will also adapt to expectations set by the space.
2. Spaces help us pace ourselves. You need to accelerate into the morning. You also need to park up to refuel and give the engine a break. Outside views and other environmental cues, including lighting, temperature, the smell of food and sounds, help us to gauge how long we’ve been on the road and when it’s time to stop.  We can see those responses in hormone levels, working memory and reaction times – and outputs like productivity, mood and sleep.
3. Prospect and refuge. Just as some love taking their chances on a fast open road, others need to know they can get out of the fast lane and roll along at their own pace. Some will find a room cold, dull and boring, while another will find it overheated and overwhelming. Thanks to new scanning techniques, we can trace indicators of those basic preferences in brain connectivity and responses like pupil dilation and heart rate variability.  

And thanks to smart building technologies like adaptive shading and lighting, heating and acoustics, we can create spaces where we can all thrive, whatever our driving style.

Wrapping up National Loneliness Awareness Week

I love spending time with family and friends. But every so often, I pop in to see my next door neighbour, a young woman who lives with a disability and spends a lot of time on her own.

Loneliness is, quite literally, a killer.

And it’s often much closer to home than you think. 

Take a moment to knock on a door and say ‘hi’- you might be the only person they’ve spoken to today. Letting them know they’re not alone could make their day and give your immune-boosting feel-good hormones a spring in their step too.