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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Shinberg has done something truly impressive: He has created a practical framework for architectural thinking and design, grounded in the latest research on human perception and cognition. His ideas and insights offer a fresh perspective that have helped me clarify many aspects of my own approach to design.
—Stefan Behling, Architect, Senior Executive Partner, Head of Studio, Foster+Partners, London
This book is a must-read for architects and designers at any stage of their career. His inspiring and practical narrative makes even the most complex concepts accessible. Along the way, he offers aspiring and experienced professionals a fresh perspective to reignite their passion for architecture.
—Andrea de Paiva, Architect, Urban Planner, and Author, Director of NeuroAU at the University of Brasilia
Milton Shinberg is at the vanguard of architects convinced that the design of buildings for people to flourish should incorporate a deep understanding of human psychology and neuroscience. A very clearly written book, rich with reflections from the science of human emotions, embodiment, and aesthetics, People-Centered Architecture will greatly enhance architectural thinking, education, and practice.
—Anjan Chatterjee, MD, FAAN, Professor of Neurology, Psychology, and Architecture, University of Pennsylvania
A veteran architect’s pragmatic guide to re-energizing design thinking, architectural practice and architectural education, with pivotal insights from the human sciences and wisdom harvested from non-architects.
People-Centered Architecture: Design Practice Education is a unique and probing exploration designed to help architects better serve everyone who uses what architects design. In this one-of-a-kind book, architect and educator Milton Shinberg presents game-changing approaches to enhance, reorient, and re-energize design thinking.
Shinberg draws from decades of dialogue with architects, designers, clients, artists, scientists, teachers, and his own students. His prompts and provocations, written in a clear and accessible narrative style, are organized to help architects, who are humanists, come to know much more about humans. Wise design becomes easier.
In one concise volume, People-Centered Architecture: Design Practice Education delivers a vibrant framework for architectural practice, for students and teachers of architecture, and for clients and stakeholders. Through this book, each will see their project partners more clearly, more empathetically, and in ways that foster richer, better brainstorming and more productive collaboration. The “coalition of the curious,” people intrigued by architecture and architects, will get a peak behind the curtain.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
About the Author
Foreword
TYE FARROW, FARROW PARTNERS TORONTO
REBECCA AMBOUROUE, GENSLER WASHINGTON, DC
Note
Introduction
HUMANISTS …
… WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND HUMANS?
THE ARC OF OUR WORK
WHO IS THIS BOOK DESIGNED FOR?
Notes
1 People Connections
with
Architecture
Chapter 1.0: Human Factors & Architecture
THE SCIENCES OF PEOPLE
ARCHITECTURE AND HUMAN FACTORS
THE U.S. ARCHITECTURAL PROFESSION GETS INTO THE ACT
ARCHITECTURE AND HUMAN FACTORS
SPECULATION
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX
LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE? ASK A SCIENTIST
QUALITATIVE
RESEARCH: SCIENCE
LED
BY INTUITION
MORE “SOFT SCIENCE”: OBSERVATION AND ANALYSIS THROUGH DRAWING
MORE CONTRIBUTIONS BY NONSCIENTISTS
WHEN WOULD A HUMAN FACTORS DESIGN CONSULTANT PARTICIPATE?
WHERE WOULD HUMAN FACTORS CONSULTANTS COME FROM?
NEXT
Notes
Chapter 1.1: Senses & Architecture
PRELUDE: THREE VERY BRIEF QUESTIONS
SENSORY SYNTHESIS
MULTISENSORY REALITY
FIGURE, THE TARGET OF OUR SENSES
OTHER SENSES?
COLOR AND ARCHITECTURE
SENSES AND AGING
BLINDNESS
LEVELS OF STIMULATION
PERCEPTUAL DEVICES FOR DESIGN
HORIZONTALITY
Notes
Chapter 1.2: Reality & Architecture
ARCHITECTURAL REALITY
COGNITION
COGNITIVE CLOSURE: A PARTICULARLY BIG DEAL
COGNITIVE ELEMENTS: FORM PRIMITIVES AND ARCHITECTURE
COMPOSITIONAL TENSION
COGNITION AND ARCHITECTURE: WHAT CONNECTS PEOPLE TO SPACES
CONSCIOUSNESS: WHO NEEDS IT?
COGNITION: GUESSING EFFECTIVELY
FAMOUS EXAMPLES FOR ARCHITECTURAL FORM ANALYSIS
THE VAST MAJORITY OF ARCHITECTURAL ENVIRONMENTS ARE COMPLEX
COHERENCE AND ARCHITECTURAL EXPERIENCE
“CUBISM” IN ARCHITECTURE
20
GAUGING ARCHITECTURAL COMPLEXITY: YOUR REACTIONS
NAVIGATION
DRAWING OUT
NEXT
Notes
Chapter 1.3: Behavior & Architecture
THEN AND NOW
GETTING SMARTER
THE SCIENCES OF HUMANS
BUILDING INTERIOR ENVIRONMENTS
ANTHROPOLOGY
INHERITED HARD‐WIRING: REFUGE & PROSPECT IN ARCHITECTURE
MORE RECENT ADAPTATIONS: ARCHITECTURE FOLLOWS SUIT
THIGMOTAXIS
SOCIOLOGY
HUMAN BEHAVIOR AND DESIGN
GETTING DOWN TO FEET AND INCHES
PSYCHOLOGY: ACTIONABLE EVIDENCE‐BASED DESIGN
BOTTOM LINE
Notes
Chapter 1.4: Embodiment, Affordances, & Architecture
INTRODUCTION
EMBODIMENT
EMBODIED COGNITION
AFFORDANCES
ARCHITECTURE, AND OTHER THINGS
WHOLE‐BODY EMBODIMENT
THE TRIO WITHIN EMBODIMENT AND AFFORDANCES
EMBODIMENT LANDS IN ARCHITECTURE
KINESTHETICS EXPRESSED IN ARCHITECTURE
EMBODIMENT EXPRESSED INWHOLE‐BODY GESTURES
BALANCE AND BILATERAL SYMMETRY
ASYMMETRIC FORCES
EMPATHY & EINFUHLUNG
EINFÜHLUNG & BEAUTY
NEXT
Notes
Chapter 1.5: Beauty & Architecture
BEAUTY'S ANTECHAMBER
IS BEAUTY BEYOND WORDS?
GETTING IT RIGHT IN DESIGN
ON UGLY
DEFINING AESTHETICS
NEUROAESTHETICS
THE NEUROSCIENCE OF SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
BEAUTY? NO BODY IS PERFECT
“CAPITAL A” ARCHITECTURE?
Notes
2 People Dialogues
About
Architecture
Chapter 2.1: Listening to People
EXQUISITE LISTENING
MAKING CONNECTIONS
ALLIANCES
THE PARTICIPATION “MEMBRANE”
GUT FEELINGS
WHAT WE MAY MISS AS EXPERTS
VENUES FOR LISTENING
CHARRETTES: ONE WAY OF LISTENING
GETTING THE MOST FROM LISTENING
Notes
Chapter 2.2: Images & Words from People
ARCHITECTS AND THE POWER OF THE VISUAL
IMAGES: AN EXAMPLE
WORDS
NARRATIVE IN FILM
Notes
3 Design
Chapter 3.1: Intuition, Emotion, & Reason
INTUITION DEFINED
INTUITION AND THE FEELINGS OF DESIGNERS
GUT REACTIONS
THE LIMBIC BRAIN, THE “ARCHITECTURAL BRAIN,” AND ITS FRIENDS
INTUITION ISN'T THE SAME AS INSTINCT
CREATIVITY
RESPECTING THE INTUITIVE MIND
HEURISTICS – WAYS WE SOLVE ARCHITECTURAL PROBLEMS
INTUITION AND DESIGN CONVENTIONS
Notes
Chapter 3.2: Enhancing Design
WALK, RUN, OR JUMP?
ARCHITECTURE'S GREATEST IMPACT
STARTING WITH THE RIGHT NAME: CONCEPT PHASE
CONCEPT PHASE: THE PARTS
THE COMPONENTS OF THE CONCEPT PHASE ARE NOT SEQUENTIAL
THE PAUSE
EXTERNALIZING ARCHITECTURAL THINKING
CREATIVE PROCESSES
WAYS TO WASTE OUR HIGHEST‐QUALITY DESIGN THINKING?
DESIGN STRATEGIES
FORM FOLLOWS MOVEMENT: CHOREOGRAPHY
PLACE
TANGIBLE & INTANGIBLE FORCES ON DESIGN THINKING
RIPPLES THROUGH SCHEMATIC DESIGN AND BEYOND
RETURNING TO CLIENTS AND STAKEHOLDERS
BEFORE
SCHEMATIC DESIGN
Notes
4 Practice
Chapter 4.1: Probing Practice
ARCHITECTURE ISN'T EASY
DESIGN: BAD, GOOD, GREAT
WHO WE ARE: IDEALS IN PRACTICE
IS EVERYTHING ROSY?
DIVERSITY
ARCHITECTS' MOODS: HARVESTS OF PLEASURE AND OPTIMISM
POLYMATHS
AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES
Notes
Chapter 4.2: Enhancing Practice
PRACTICE RENEWED: REVISITING HOW FIRMS OPERATE
ENHANCING THE EXPERIENCE OF WORK
FEES
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN PRACTICE
NEXT
Notes
Chapter 4.3: Increasing Value & Prestige
WE'VE GOT SOME PROBLEMS
SOME QUESTIONS
NON‐SOLUTIONS?
OTHER SOLUTIONS
MORE REAL SOLUTIONS
FORGETTING WHAT WE DO BEST?
REMEMBERING WHAT WE DO BEST
Notes
5 Education
Chapter 5.1: Revisiting Education
BROADENING EDUCATION
Notes
Chapter 5.2: Enhancing Education
BEING A TEACHER
LEARNING TO TEACH
ILLUSTRATION: SAMPLES FROM TEACHING
Notes
Epilogue
PATHS FOR ARCHITECTS
AND FINALLY
Acknowledgments
HELP FROM THE ARCHITECTURAL COMMUNITY
HELP FROM THE SCIENCE COMMUNITY
WORD‐WISE HELPERS
FROM THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY
FAMILY
Bibliography
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
About the Author
Foreword
Introduction
Begin Reading
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index
End User License Agreement
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Advance Praise for People-Centered Architecture
In People-Centered Architecture, Milton Shinberg shares his questions and findings from an exceptional career of architectural practice and teaching.
Milton asks how can architectural principles and practices become fully humane? What do today’s and tomorrow’s architects need to know about people to create the architectural future in which we can thrive? Understanding the depth and breadth of People-Centered Architecture starts here.
Those like me fortunate enough to have known Milton throughout these decades appreciate that his professional and academic interests and insights reflect so fully his open mind and heart.
Carl Elefante, FAIA
Fellow and Former President of the American Institute of Architects
Principal Emeritus, Quinn Evans Architects
This wise book brings architecture back to where it should be—not in abstraction or arcane theory–but in how it should respond to the people who live, work, play, and dream within its realm. The author draws upon the science of human behavior—its sensory foundations—to show how design can more faithfully respond. The design process must be grounded in empathetic and active engagement with clients, users, and the architecturally curious—their hopes and aspirations–to make them at home in the world through beauty.
This book is a humanist call to architectural practitioners, educators, and students to place people first, and for all of us to be in service—first and foremost—to our brothers and sisters.
Michael J. Crosbie, Ph.D., Architect
Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Professor of Architecture, University of Hartford,Editor-in-Chief at Faith & Form, Editor at Architecture: The AIA Journal and Progressive Architecture, Contributor to Architectural Record,Author of Pelli: Life in Architecture, Houses of God: Religious Architecture for a New Millenium, Arches to Zigzags: An Architectural ABC, Architecture Colors, Co-Author, Time Saver Standards for Architectural Design
In writing People-Centered Architecture, Milton Shinberg has provided a huge service to architectural practitioners, educators and students—and anyone else with more than a passing interest in the built environment. This clear and thoroughly accessible book offers a comprehensive guide to what has come to be known as “Neuroscience for Architecture,” with chapters on the senses, behavior, beauty and much, much more. And in rethinking aspects of both contemporary design training and practice, the author reminds us that the discipline of architecture must always—first and foremost—consider people.
Kurt Hunker, Architect,
Fellow of the American Institute of ArchitectsChief Design Officer,Davy Architecture, President of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture
Here is a book by an architectural practitioner who reflects deeply about how to listen qualitatively to those affected by design and to absorb research findings relevant to a design and then, most importantly, how to cultivate mental habits to unleash creative solutions inspired by these listenings.
Raymond Richard Neutra President,
Neutra Institute for Survival Through Design, to Preserve anduse the Neutra Legacy to promote creative research and design that benefits people and the planet
Architects often describe their work in terms of creating “experiences” for the people who will inhabit—or just pass through—the environments they create. But they do not really know much about how people actually perceive the environment around them. Milton Shinberg gives us the tour of neuroscience that designers need to understand how perception of our surroundings actually works. He then provides a much-needed guide to applying that knowledge in the journey of exploration with clients and communities that should precede every project.
Robert Peck, Principal at Gensler,
Recipient of the 2012 Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture,Former GSA Commissioner, and Honorary Member of the American Institute of Architects
Milton Shinberg’s prolific career in architecture has been driven by a search for what it means to be human. The answer, revealed in this engaging and richly illustrated new book, begins with a sure affirmation that architects are humanists, in the sense that they incorporate empathy, responsibility, and optimism to satisfy the needs and aspirations of their clients.
But Shinberg also observes that humanistic architects should appeal to modern neuroscience for knowledge of how people think, feel, and act. Shinberg smartly explains how key elements of human experience and use of architecture – from sensation and perception to feelings of order, beauty, and awe, to choice, behavior, and social communication – can be understood as products of the brain.
The future of architecture – and Shinberg’s lesson for us all – is thus a humanism woven through and through with functional insights from modern brain research. For these insights will afford a truly human-centered approach to design.
Tom Albright, PhD,
Professor and Director of the Vision Center Laboratory, Salk Institute for Biological Studies,and former president of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture
This book is grounded in a wide and deep reading in the complex interactions of life, ”The science of people,” to use a notion of the writer, long personal design practice, and decades of writing and teaching. Instead of an abstracted, intellectualized and formal approach, the writer discusses architecture as real experiences and stages of multifaceted life.
He also aims at integrating the artistic and scientific views to the art of building, especially through the knowledge generated recently by neuroscience and neuroaesthetics.Shinberg´s text has a conversational tone - the writer is present in the act of reading - which makes the book inviting, friendly and approachable for students, teachers, scholars and practitioners alike.
Juhani Pallasmaa, Architect SAFA, HonFAIA, IntFRIBA,
former Chair and professor emeritus of the School of Architecture at Aalto University, Helsinki),and author of Mind in Architecture, The Eye of the Skin – Architecture and the Senses, The Thinking Hand – Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture, and many others.
People-Centered Architecture is a must-have for every architect, teacher, and student of architecture. This transformative work redefines the core principles of design, prioritizing a profound alignment with the needs and experiences of real people. By challenging traditional foundations and reshaping design thinking, it sets a new standard for what architecture can and should be. It’s a remarkable achievement that will inspire and elevate the field.
Mariela Buendia-Corrochano, IIDA, LEED AP ID+C
Founder and CEO, studioMBC
In PEOPLE-CENTERED ARCHITECTURE, Milton Shinberg, a renowned architect and educator, offers a deeply curated meditation on being an architect (broadly construed) of well-tuned observation skills. Copiously illustrated and succinctly written, this book is constructed for a visual mind. Of particular benefit is Milton’s synthesis of a comprehensive Humanist literature covering the last 30 years.
From the biology of our full sensory engagement with buildings, from beauty to techniques for listening to people, followed by suggestions that will improve education and professional practice, this book is your guide for becoming a designer a little ahead of your time and a better architect.
Bob Condia, FAIA, Architect,
Emeritus Professor of Architecture in The College of Architecture, Planning & Design,Kansas State University, Advisory Committee, Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture
This book is an excellent ‘gateway’ for anyone involved in the design process, offering valuable insights into how to serve and inspire better those we design for. Milton Shinberg expertly guides us—with clarity and enthusiasm—through how the science of human experience, learned from and applied to people, can shape architectural thinking, practice, and education.
His message is so fundamental (though often forgotten) that it feels like a return to something familiar—something we have always known but struggle to translate into design. Enjoy this book as a refreshing ‘pause’ from the demands of everyday research and professional work, helping us refine our design sensibility.
Elisabetta Canepa, PhD in Architecture and Design Research Architect,Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Genoa, Kansas State University, and Florida International University
Milton Shinberg has thrown an elegant net over the messy, contentious, fuzzy edged world of people-environment relationships. His book is beautifully organized, using carefully chosen information categories and sequences that lead the reader on an information journey that is both clear and persuasive.
The book begins by making the case for people-centered design. Then it moves on to how we function as human organisms, ways we engage our built environment, methods for expanding people-environment information and the importance of attention to people-environment in the design process, in the management of architectural practice and in educating future architects. It is a timely and important book in these days of project agendas that often take human factors for granted.
Edward T. (Tim) White, Professor of Architecture, Florida State University
Author of Building Meaning, and Introduction to Architectural Programming, andPost-Occupancy Evaluation, and Design Intervention, and Concept Sourcebook.
Out of decades of a successful and reflective architectural practice and teaching career come Milton Shinberg’s timely insights on pursuing human-centered architecture. Far from subjective observations, these discernments and recommendations are grounded in a nuanced reading of science, psychology, and education and the thoughtful consideration of many other respected voices and perspectives.
The result is a book that expands our understanding of design thinking, making, and pedagogy by inviting us to go beyond what we know. Using a friendly and engaging writing style, Shinberg brings us on a journey exploring the most relevant topics in today’s architectural world. This book will prove useful to the seasoned architectural practitioner or academic, the college student, and any ordinary citizen intrigued by the value and power of the built environment.
Julio Bermudez, PhD, Architect,Author ACSA Distinguished Professor of Architecture President of the Architecture, Culture and Spirituality Forum
In this groundbreaking work, Milton Shinberg cuts through the fog about architecture’s effects on the human mind, offering instead a clear journey into the science of how buildings shape our brains and behavior.
Moving seamlessly between cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and architecture, Shinberg reveals the hidden processes behind why some spaces uplift us while others leave us cold.
Written with incredible clarity, and without sacrificing scientific accuracy, this book transforms our understanding of the built environment—essential reading for anyone who has ever wondered why architecture moves us and why we need a people-centered approach to our spaces.
Zacharia Djebbara, PhD, MS Architecture, PhD Architecture and Cognitive Neuroscience Faculty,Aalborg Universitet, Department of Architecture, Design and Media TechnologyBuilt Environment and Cognitive Neuroscience
Milton Shinberg’s People-Centered Architecture is a remarkable distillation of the wisdom he has drawn from a lifetime of architectural practice and a distinguished career in architectural education. The book draws together some of the most recent and relevant ideas from the human sciences with the pragmatics of architectural practice. Young architects will want to have this book close at hand for down-to-earth advice and vital inspiration.
Likewise nudges from voice of a master teacher, the book will remind them of the power of what they can accomplish. Scientists wanting to contribute to architecture will find much-needed insight into some of the cornerstones of architectural practice. Throughout, Shinberg’s crystal-clear, beautifully grounded voice, free of artifice and jargon, oozes with passion for his subject and will similarly infect the reader in the best possible way. This book will endure, and will inspire and excite future generations of those of us who want to build a better world.
Colin Ellard, PhD
Colin Ellard, Professor, University of Waterloo Urban Realities Lab,
Author of Places of the Heart, The Psychogeography of Everyday Life, Author of You Are Here:Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon But Get Lost at the Mall, and Design Consultant
Another cornerstone in the long journey to rebalance human needs and architectural design. Milton wrote this book embracing all his passionate experience as a designer but departing from it to gain a broader view of reality through a lucid and complete scientific understanding of human-space interplay. It contributes to warming younger students’ hearts and keeping the dream that people can live better.
Davide Ruzzon, Architect
Principal of TA tuning arch in Milan Director of the Neuroscience Applied to Architectural Design,Postgraduate Program, Universita luav Venezia, Author of Tuning Architecture with Humans
In People-Centered Architecture, Milton Shinberg deftly lays out a thoughtful, immersive design process that integrates insights from sensory sciences. Shinberg advocates for a more humanistic, efficient, and inspiring approach to architecture that can lead to better outcomes for clients, communities, and architects alike. His book will undoubtedly help architects create designs that resonate deeply with human needs and aspirations.
Susan Magsamen,
Founder and Executive Director of the International Arts+Mind Lab and the Center for AppliedNeuroaesthetics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Pedersen Brain Science Institute,and Co-author of Your Brain on Art, How the Arts Transform Us
Bridging the hard realities of practice with the ideal aspirations of the academy, this work is a truly generous contribution to the field of architecture and beyond. This word generous, that so accurately describes Milton Shinberg, is rooted in the word to be born—and is the shared origin of other words, like gentle, generative and genuine—terms which also suggest essential qualities of this book. Grounded in decades of experience creating schools, homes and public places, Shinberg details research-based, practical methods that prioritise openness, active listening and deliberate slowness at the conception of the design process—a gentle approach that begins with the needs and aspirations of real people. Such a generative approach is a welcome relief to the reigning formalist, ego-driven architecture of past decades. This book is a manual for creating a different kind of architecture, one genuinely responsive to people, place and the planet.
Sarah Robinson Architect,
Adjunct Professor in the Department of Architecture Design and Media Technologyat Aalborg University, Denmark, teacher in the NAAD program at IUAV, Venice, co-editor of Mind in Architecture, co-authorof Architecture and Empathy, and author of Architecture is a Verb, and Nesting: body dwelling mind.
Milton Shinberg’s People-Centered Architecture does just that: it re-focuses architects on the people who will occupy the spaces they design and shows design professionals both the theories behind designing for health and how to implement those theories into practice. An important book for anyone in the field wanting to make their spaces wellbeing spaces for all!
Esther M. Sternberg M.D.
Author of Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Wellbeing Well At Work: Creating Wellbeing in Any Workspace,Professor of Medicine and Psychology, Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, and Nutritional Sciencesand Wellness at the University of Arizona
With the warp of the new biological sciences and the astute weft of an architect’s imagination, Milton Shinberg weaves a polychromatic pattern revealing not only how we construct the built environment but also how we might conceive a more humane and embodied approach to design.
Harry Francis Mallgrave, PhD in Architecture,Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Author of The Architects Brain, and From Object to ExperienceDirector of International Center for Sustainable New Cities, IIT
As a student of Professor Shinberg, I had the privilege of working with him in the design studio. His mentorship was instrumental in shaping my development as a designer, and his innovative thinking continues to inspire me and many others.
One of his most ground-breaking contributions is his course, Beauty & Brains, which explores the relationship between aesthetics and cognitive science, reflecting a forward-thinking approach to architecture and design. His book is an essential tool for anyone interested in contemporary architectural theory and practice, and I heartily recommend it.
Ryan Saidi2024 Graduate, The Catholic University of ArchitectureThesis Super Jury Winner
PEOPLE‐CENTEREDARCHITECTURE
Design Practice Education
MILTON SHINBERG
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Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data:
Names: Shinberg, Milton, author.Title: People‐Centered Architecture / Milton Shinberg.Description: First edition. | Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2025] | Includes index.Identifiers: LCCN 2024022158 (print) | LCCN 2024022159 (ebook) | ISBN 9781394265923 (paperback) | ISBN 9781394265947 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781394265930 (epub)Subjects: LCSH: Architecture—Human factors. | Intuition. | Architectural practice.Classification: LCC NA2542.4 .S52 2025 (print) | LCC NA2542.4 (ebook) | DDC 720.1/9—dc23/eng/20240620LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024022158LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024022159
Cover Design: WileyFront Cover Image: © Pravit/stock.adobe.comBack Cover Image: © ilbusca/Getty Images
To my grandchildrenFelix and Tabitha
who let me see the world through their eyes
and helped me pause.
About the Author
Milton Shinberg is a veteran architect, architectural educator, and artist. He is Principal Emeritus at Shinberg Levinas Architects, a prominent firm in Washington, DC. Shinberg has maintained a parallel career as adjunct professor at the Catholic University of America's School of Architecture & Planning, teaching all studio levels while creating new courses. Among them: Beauty & Brains, investigating the intersection of architecture and human sciences, and On Drawing. He shares his ideas at gatherings in the U.S. and internationally and is on the Advisory Boards of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture and the International Arts+Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins.
Foreword
TYE FARROW, FARROW PARTNERS TORONTO
Our surroundings speak to us on many levels. As they communicate messages, we form a cognitive relationship with them that we can evaluate and modify to improve social interaction, memory, intelligence, health, and well‐being. Today's world places a high value on visual perception and stimulation. This often results in architecture that emphasizes external form, sometimes to the point of visual overstimulation. However, we now know that our other senses have deeper, more lasting and meaningful influences on how we feel. We can effectively tune our environments like a musical instrument to stimulate all our senses and help create the conditions in which we flourish.
Architecture is never neutral. Good architecture has neurological and therapeutic aspects that can help people of all ages do the things they want and need to do. Built environments can not only improve functionality and increase productivity but also enhance human comfort, creativity, connections, and health.
Unfortunately, many spaces create stress and dis‐ease because of their design. Significant literature in the fields of medical therapeutics and social services identifies how to reduce these negative effects. But comparatively little has been written about the opposite – that is, how building design can act as a noninvasive therapeutic treatment to not just reduce stress but also increase comfort, induce a positive range of feelings, and enhance the conditions in which we thrive and flourish. People‐Centered Architecture fills this void.
Over the following pages, Milton Shinberg in this insightful, inspiring, and concise treatise, opens our eyes to the vast, yet emerging landscape of research in the interrelationship between neuroscience (the science of the brain), cognitive psychology (the science of the mind), and architecture (the art and practice of placemaking).
He reveals how the profession of architecture can do better – by reimagining architectural education, professional knowledge, dialogue with clients, and most importantly, listening to, and translating responses to architecture and the wisdom of non‐architects and community members into design solutions that enhance human performance, in the places we live, work, learn, heal, and play.
His book explores, by paying attention to and being curious about, how we use all the senses: sight, scent, sound, touch, taste, and two lesser‐known senses of proprioception and the vestibular system, to help inform us about our surroundings; and how we function, feel, respond, and thrive in them.
Our bodies are like huge radar dishes, constantly absorbing information, some 11 million bits of information every second of the day. Most of that information is subconscious and preconscious, while only around 50 bits per second is conscious (Mlodinow, L., 2012).1 All this information informs our mind about our relationship with our context; some places that we want to linger and enjoy, while others we want to move through quickly. As Milton observes, “there is so much more of our mental iceberg below the waterline.”
Our human mind is the product of millions of years of survival challenges, honing it to engage with the world around us using all of our senses, in a bidirectional relationship, with astonishing precision and nuance. Recent neuroscientific breakthroughs have uncovered new insights into the senses and this bi‐directional effect of the mind on the body (top‐down) and the body on the mind (bottom‐up), including the perception of pain and pleasure that our surrounds communicate. All our senses, including those embedded in memory and experience, influence our perception, conveyed by alternative sensory modalities through sensory substitution –meaning that immersive experiences can reprogram the brain to bring about different outcomes because of multisensory experiences, like those we can design into our habitats, in dynamic and reciprocal relationships.
This book challenges us to come to terms with, and understand that, if buildings impact the health and wellbeing of the people who occupy them, then how and to what extent, are we as architects responsible for that impact?
Over the pages that follow, Milton reminds us, through copious examples, that most importantly, we are humanists who need to embrace the human sciences to once again understanding humans, and human nature. We are standing at the forefront of a renewed awakening of how we interrelate with our buildings and how we should use this knowledge to create the conditions in which we do not just merely survive, but flourish.
Tye Farrow
REBECCA AMBOUROUE, GENSLER WASHINGTON, DC
I'll start with the bottom line:
This is a terrific book, unlike any other I've found in the world of architecture. It's rich in insight and well‐developed as theory, but it doesn't stop there. Its arc throughout is toward landing ideas, making them actionable in design, equally suited to architectural practice and architectural education. Fully understanding the challenges of working as an architect, firm leader, and a seasoned teacher, the book beautifully captures the pressing issues of our profession.
Given the author, that makes perfect sense. Milton, my professor in the architecture program at Catholic University of America, has always been a practitioner/educator. He constantly synthesizes insights from both realms, a combination particularly appreciated by my fellow students.
Why I Love this Book as a Former Student
His stance, and the wisdom that comes from it, will be extremely helpful to young practitioners, and more seasoned ones, for that matter. It has been for me. He is a mentor through and through, an explorer, and a great model for the pleasures of life‐long learning.
While People‐Centered Architecture is extraordinary and unique at the level of theory, it is not primarily a theory book. There are many of those on the shelf already. Instead, it's designed specifically to help ideas less commonly visited in architectural theory land in pragmatic and actionable ways. Milton has built this book to be on the desk, not the shelf.
I took Milton's Beauty & Brains course, which in many ways parallels this book. It is a class I firmly believe would benefit anyone even remotely interested in architecture, the people Milton calls the “Coalition of the Curious.” It was absolutely transformative for me and my fellow students.
Milton's writing is direct and yet informal, a voice that's just right for architects, whether beginning students or practitioners with long experience. He is dedicated to making ideas highly accessible, easy to apply pragmatically. He shares approaches that bring us to the right questions, the core questions that architecture at its best can answer elegantly and eloquently. That's the magic.
He has a truly remarkable, actually unique ability, to bring a wide range of ideas, including the human sciences, into the realm of architectural thinking. With his touch, the science isn't foreign or formidable.
And then he goes farther. His approaches to learning from the wisdom of people who aren't in our field is further evidence that wonderful design insights are all around us. We just need to know where to find them, how to harvest them, and how to act on them.
My fellow students have recommended that Beauty & Brains be made a required course in architecture. We share the conviction that it, and now this book, have a pivotal place in architectural education and practice. While in school, I also shared what I was learning in the course with people pursuing other majors. They found it fascinating. They didn't want to just hear about it. They wanted to take it.
His never‐ending commitment to enriching the human experience of architecture, and his commitment to the overall success and well‐being of students, are clear and embedded in this book. I experienced it while I was Milton's student, but I got to rediscover it once again in these pages. That is a great pleasure – one I hope many others will enjoy in these pages.
Rebecca Ambouroue
Note
1
L. Mlodinow,
Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior
(Pantheon/Random House, 2012).
Introduction
This book is about two ways that the profession of architecture can do better, better for clients and stakeholders and the public at large. And, at the same time, better for ourselves. Both ways involve paying more attention to people, the people we design for, and doing so in ways that lead directly to enhanced design thinking and better, even wiser, architecture.
As you move through the book, I believe you won't find the ideas foreign. Rather, I believe you'll find it's more like coming home.
The first two sections provide a detailed foundation that sets the stage for approaches that land in design, in practice, and in education. One looks at how humans actually engage the environment, specifically architecture. Some of the ideas come from rapidly expanding work by architects and scientists who look to the human sciences for insight. Without understanding people, how can we know whether our design thinking aligns with the people we're designing for.
The next section turns to respect for the insights and wisdom of nonarchitects, something I've found so valuable over the years, and into ways we can leverage and on‐ramp their contributions into the process of design.
What's the motivation to write this book and invite you to read it? As a long‐time practitioner, I've seen a lot of our work and the work of others go quite well. I've also seen disappointments for us as architects, for our clients, and for a general public that we could serve even better and inspire even more. And, with surprisingly modest changes in our design process' trajectory – how we spend our invaluable and unrecoverable time on projects – we can do better. We can also do so more easily and with greater pleasure. Design doesn't have to be hard.
Source:radekcho/Adobe Stock Photos.
HUMANISTS …
I believe that, by temperament and aspiration, architects1are humanists – that is, people deeply concerned about the ultimate well‐being of people.
And our work is far more successful in architectural terms when it goes farther, when it resonates with the essence of what it means to be human, when architecture aligns with the deepest needs and aspirations and joys of people. Our work, at its best, helps people be well in the world through the exceptional ways architecture can make life better. When we do our best, people beat down the doors to see and experience what we create. That can happen more often.
… WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND HUMANS?
In fact, architects are humanists who want to understand much more about humans. That's an aspiration I share quite deeply. It is motive – a motivating force in my practice and teaching – and, by extension, the pivotal aim of this book. I have found, sharing what I've learned across a number of venues, that helping provide more understanding can be achieved quite directly, without upsetting our profession's applecart. Instead, the approaches proffered in this book are designed to strengthen the cart and refresh the horses.
How?
We can reinvigorate our thinking in the earliest stages of design and help save the financial and emotional costs to ourselves and our clients from false starts.
We can increase the likelihood that clients and stakeholders will be excited to support our design proposals because they'll see themselves in the core of what we propose and support those human and humane ideas wholeheartedly.
And, no small thing, when the public's opinion of what we accomplish is high, our influence and our leverage in the power dynamics that make‐or‐break projects will increase. There's more about that in the Increasing Value & Prestige chapter.
THE ARC OF OUR WORK
The ideas and approaches in this book work best if they're put to work at the very start of projects, before pencil hits paper or stylus hits tablet or design software is engaged. I believe that each of those valuable tools, when turned on too early, much too quickly commit us to one design idea, hardening and limiting our thoughts before the full cast of project characters, including the arrival of our muse, has appeared on the stage for us and our team. “Casting a wide net” captures the unexpected, and that process prompts the deepest creativity.
Instead of too‐quick design starts, I recommend a period of immersion, research, and reflection, a Pause. Different architects download what's been brewing in their minds at different times but many of our most highly regarded colleagues extend that pause, inviting, with a gentle receptivity, the space for the best ideas to emerge.2
The Pause gives your ideas time to cook. You'll go to sleep with questions and wake up with answers. Your brain is ready, willing, and very well‐tuned to help. It's evolved that way. Just stay tuned and manage to be patient. Getting it right the first time has multiple payoffs every practitioner and every student knows well. That's part of the pragmatic argument for expanding one part of early design and compressing what follows as described in the Enhancing Practice and Enhancing Education chapters.
WHO IS THIS BOOK DESIGNED FOR?
Practicing Architects
I've shared many of the ideas in the book at professional forums in the US and other countries. They've been received very well, particularly by seasoned architects hungry for new approaches to design and practice. Newly minted younger architects, judged by their engagement and questions, have a similar appetite.
Source:Georgina Burrows/Adobe Stock Photos.
Students of Architecture
My students have taken many of the ideas that landed in this book, some from their time in my Beauty & Brains seminar, and others in studio courses I've taught, directly into their design projects. The ideas and the students are battle‐tested. They report how much better, and how much easier, those approaches have made their own work. Wanting to share their experience with more students and with practitioners was a major motivation for writing this book.
Teachers of Architecture
You help shape the profession of architecture by sharing ideas and strategies for understanding and conceiving architecture. You are mentors. The ideas in the book are offered with the hope that you'll find them helpful in that very important work.
The “Coalition of the Curious”
If you're an architectural client, or considering becoming one, or a project stakeholder, you'll find approaches in the book that embrace you and your wisdom. If you're simply intrigued with how architecture is created, you'll have a look behind that curtain. I've presented similar materials to nonarchitects in lectures and university courses over the years. They've been very well received and have prompted terrific questions and dialogue.
A Gateway Book
This is a “gateway” book, not exhaustive or exhausting. For those inspired to go deeper, there are lots of references to point the way, and they're not hidden at the back of the book – you can find them at the bottom of almost every page. A robust Bibliography expands on those sources.
Notes
1
For brevity's sake
alone
, “architects” is used as shorthand for the design professionals who design things for people. We're all in it together.
2
Cal Newport pursues the enormous value of taking a bit more time in
Slow Productivity, The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
, 2024, published by Portfolio.
1People Connections with Architecture
Chapter 1.0Human Factors & Architecture: Underpinnings of Architectural Experience
This section of the book is about how people interact with the environment, and how a deeper knowledge of people can enhance design. The human sciences help provide that knowledge.
For architects, a critical underlying question is: “how do we know people well enough to design for them, to create architecture that is human and humane?” The underlying answer: “Expand our knowledge of people.”
The architectural profession has made a few attempts to know people better, to integrate the sciences of people into practice over the years. A number of books, along with myriad studies –mostly from the 1970s through 1990s – and the work of a small, but dedicated cadre of firms and academics, focused on what was then called “environmental psychology.”
There were smaller forays into sociology.1 Austrian‐born US architect Richard Neutra (1892–1970) beat the scientists to it with Survival by Design in 1954.2 His interest in how people relate to architecture started long before and continued with more writings and projects long after.
One book in particular, Russell Ellis and Diana Cuff's 1989 Architects' People3 from, didn't just call into question whether architects were thinking enough about people. It slammed the profession for being oriented to everything but. Despite some attempts to correct that, practical applications didn't penetrate architectural practice or education back then.4 Why? In part because the research hadn't matured enough to support practical design thinking and, at the same time, both of those arenas of architecture were focused on entirely different priorities. Ellis and Cuff were right, but the time wasn't ripe.
Starting around 2000, however, the sciences of people, researching how people really engage the environment, began to expand – and they expanded dramatically. So did collaborations between scientists and architects. Now, there are joint conferences, research, and publications. More universities are integrating what is being broadly called “human sciences” into design and there's plenty to bring to practice now that's useful and actionable. More is needed, but, with evidence‐based design and its cousins, the time to enhance practice and design outcomes has arrived.
THE SCIENCES OF PEOPLE
When relevant science is introduced well, and explained in common‐sense ways that connect to architectural intuition, architects can see science as a great resource, not a threat to creativity. Sciences relevant to architectural design include psychology, anthropology, biology, sociology and other “ologies.” Here's a very brief introduction to just two of the newer ones:
Neuroscience
Neuroscience, once aimed exclusively at medical research, now aims at the many dimensions of engagement with What's Out There, an expression I'm using to describe the world beyond you and your body – the “objective,” “kickable” world we can bump into.. It turns out that understanding what's happening not just between our ears but throughout our bodies may be the greatest treasure trove for understanding architecture, the spaces and places where we spend nearly all of our time.
Neuroaesthetics
A newer and already productive field, “neuroaesthetics,” is opening windows for us to move forward in our quest for beauty. The insights are profound, make common sense, and are both useful and exciting.5 It seems even beauty can be a subject for science, without undermining its power or essence.
And Yet, Not New
Making design/science connections isn't really a new venture. To the contrary, connecting those dots goes back millennia. Greek and Egyptian polymaths, making their own discoveries, laid the foundations for the very polymathic Renaissance masters and their successors to go further, tens of generations later.
By the Renaissance, it was the norm for people who made architecture to be polymaths, interested in everything, inventing in all directions, displacing conventions. Those heirs of the ancients connected architecture, science, art, music, medicine, philosophy, astronomy, and anything else that came to their restless minds.
They saw all of these areas of study as deeply connected, not siloed as they are in our age. They saw all learning as having one foundation and one goal: a continuum of curiosity and wisdom. Just to name a few, think Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and, a bit later, Christopher Wren. Dot‐connecting was their special forte.
ARCHITECTURE AND HUMAN FACTORS
Architects and Science in History
Our most famous architects in history rarely kept to one discipline: they explored connections amongst the sciences. We know Christopher Wren (1632–1723) as a preeminent English architect and the lead architect for replanning and rebuilding areas of London after the Great Fire of 1666, including St. Paul’s Cathedral. As if that wasn't enough, he was more: a physiologist, researcher of optics, microscopy, astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and medical illustrator in collaboration with Thomas Lewis of the Oxford Group, as assembly of eminent thinkers, that pursued knowledge across silos.
Wren's Anatomical Drawing of the Human Brain, in Conjunction with Thomas Lewis.
Source: W.F. Bynum and Helen Bynum / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain.
Christopher Wren, with St Paul's Cathedral, 1632–1723.
Source: The Royal Hospital Chelsea / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain.
Leonardo da Vinci, an architect, and sometime painter, famous for his extraordinarily detailed anatomical studies, was a thoughtful observer of people and behavior related to the brain.
Michelangelo, yet another architect, opined:
“He who does not master the nude cannot understand the principles of architecture.”
Each of these architect/scientists made myriad connections, unifying them into a single, indivisible scaffold for looking at the built world.
Leonardo da Vinci, Architect, Study of a Human Skull.
Source: pd‐old / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain.
Michelangelo Buonarotti, Architect, Male Figure Study.
Source: Teylers Museum/Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain.
So, it's time to take another look at relating architecture and the sciences of people.
Today's architecture is very late connecting the architecture/science dots.6 Bringing human science to design has been advantaged for product design for at least a 100 years, and thoroughly monetized in many other realms. Consider the design of cars in that extremely competitive industry. Seductively appealing to people's needs, emotional as well as functional, is at the core. For the architectural profession, just beginning, it's past time to catch up.
How? Some major architectural firms are studying architecture/brain‐science connections and bringing current research to practice. They're even conducting their own research to support projects moving through their offices. Their clients are being convinced that more reliable outcomes benefit them, integrating new understandings, propelled by research into the design thinking of their project teams.
Design in its own way is a process of creating hypotheses. Architects invent solutions that assume, or presume successful outcomes. To reduce the risk of failed hypotheses, research helps validate, or invalidate, whether we're getting it right. Each project evaluated thoughtfully can advance our thinking and increase our success going forward.
While in‐house research is somewhat more feasible in the economic structure of large firms, medium and smaller firms can join in as the research expands, behavior‐monitoring hardware gets cheaper, the software gets much better, and the conclusions clearer.
For firms big and small, foundational and evolving knowledge can easily be accessed online and through brief, focused consultations with experts that bridge design and science. Harvesting new knowledge doesn't have to be expensive. Among the resources are the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA), and Sally Augustin's Design with Science clearinghouse, specifically targeted for sharing recent architecture/neuroscience research. There are many more.
In other words, there's no need to start from scratch. Help is available.
The future of the architecture/science connection is looking better and better. Some members of the current generation of architecture students, having learned about architecture/human science connections for design in specialized, but rare courses, are already bringing these ideas into firm culture and project strategies. Some are transporting their architectural educations and professional experience directly into the science realm, getting advanced degrees and directly contributing to research. As I'll describe later, those specialists can help evolve a profession by bringing important human dimensions to practice and education. I'll name them “human factors design consultants.” Their consultations can be impactful while surprisingly brief and therefore inexpensive, collaborative, and leveraged to pay off handsomely in design and design approvals. They can help the design team develop design ideas that are architecturally sound and, at the same time, feel right to clients and stakeholders. They ring intuitively, emotionally, and pragmatically.
“Speaking” Architecture
Evolving over the last few decades, there are now more and more architects who can “speak” the science well enough for real exchanges with scientists. There are also scientists who are quite intrigued with architecture who've learned to “speak” architecture just as well.7 Yes, their languages are different. The same words can mean very different things or be ambiguous, or be misunderstood entirely, but both groups are working hard to understand each other's points of views. Bridges are being built.
THE U.S. ARCHITECTURAL PROFESSION GETS INTO THE ACT
In 2003, architect and educator John Eberhard, FAIA, with major support from the American Institute of Architects' College of Fellows, created the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, ANFA. It's now based at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California. Salk is a special place in the world of architecture and the product of architect/scientist profound, game‐changing collaboration.
Louis Kahn, architect of the Salk Institute, worked with Jonas Salk, discoverer of the vaccine that prevents polio. Accounts of their work together and the evolution of the design are part of architectural legend.
ANFA is led by both architects and scientists, promoting and highlighting dialogue between their professional communities through frequent international conferences and events.
The AIA continued with its science initiatives by creating a joint project with the National Institute of Building Science (NIBS) to promote research on people and buildings. Their reports, covering pragmatic and aesthetic topics, are valuable.8
John Paul Eberhard, FAIA, 1927–2020, formerly the Architectural Research leader at the AIA and chair of Architecture at Carnegie‐Mellon University.
Source: Courtesy of Barbara Eberhard.
ARCHITECTURE AND HUMAN FACTORS
Applying Evidence‐Based Design
Some of the fruits of science are at the level of evidence‐based design, which qualifies as applied research, developed application by application, as opposed to basic research that goes deeper into fundamental principles that can support application.
When using evidence‐based design ideas, it's important that we listen to its Siren's Song very carefully. By definition, it comes from narrowly focused research with limiting assumptions and, therefore, inherently limited application. We need enough knowledge of the science, or consultant help, to know when a research conclusion is both solid and applicable to the project at hand.
Science outcomes can be dramatic in their benefits, even when their targets may seem so hyper‐focused as to be out of sync with the breadth and richness of architectural experience.
Focused doesn't mean low impact. As just one example, David Borkenhagen's Vancouver General Hospital Study9 had as its singular objective saving lives by redesigning operating rooms for better circulation.
Here's the result of their extensive interviews and observations: two doors in the surgery space were relocated. Did it work? The reconfiguration was validated by testing in an operating room mockup. Movement was observed. Collisions between surgical personnel were greatly reduced. If you don't want the surgical team to be bumping into each other during your surgery, you'll want Borkenhagen's recommendations followed. Lives can be saved.
Architects are on the generative end of developing evidence‐based approaches as well. Among them are Joanna Lombard and Elizabeth Plater‐Zyberk, studying hospital environments, prompting focused design strategies.10
Risks of Evidence‐Based Design
For example, knowing that touch sensitivity declines with age, evidence‐based design could argue for more deeply textured surfaces in senior facilities. That's good replicable science, but a bad start for design. It’s also an example of possible misapplication, how applying research that appears to be on‐target and relying on it exclusively can miss other relevant science and common sense. Consider the greater chance of bleeding wounds from abrasion if thin skin characteristic of older people rubs against rough textures, compounded by less awareness of touch as “bulb cells” in the surface of the skin decrease with age. Having experienced architect/scientist consultant advice for choosing appropriate evidence‐based conclusions helps avoid taking the wrong conclusions from research. Tread carefully.
Another example comes from the University Medical Center of Princeton. Concerned about problems in treatment progress, surgical patients were moved into mockups of hospital rooms. Nurses and doctors provided continuous reporting of what was working and what wasn't in typical hospital operations.
The results were stunning. In rooms with views to the outside, patients needed 30% less pain medication and expressed higher satisfaction with nursing care and even hospital food, although those particulars did not change. Other studies have confirmed that conclusion.11
Another study addressed the duration of psychiatric in‐patient care in different environments. Here's what emerged, after looking at many variables. “Among patients hospitalized for depression, those in rooms facing southeast, which received the most light … were discharged an average of 30 days earlier than those in rooms facing northwest.”12
That's a design driver that helps by focusing on the question of orientation and delivering at least one piece of the solution. However, applying this as a firm conclusion is on very shaky ground without carefully studying the actual research.
SPECULATION
This book relies on facts. It also builds on those facts and on architectural intuition with what I call “informed speculation.” My speculations, and yours, aren't wild guesses once they're reviewed thoughtfully and rationally. Speculation prompts more thinking. It most easily arises in dialogue. It can lead to forming the deeper questions a design should answer.
Speculation is relevant in both science and architecture and speculations can trigger profound research and discovery. While scientists understandably are not very comfortable with the speculations of nonscientists, I'm not comfortable leaving out what I believe is useful to my compatriots in the design professions. There are too many examples of speculation being transformed into solid science to ignore how intuition and experience can be solid starting points. With the support of the science community, there is ample opportunity for speculations to become research hypotheses. That's a high‐priority invitation, and ANFA invites it enthusiastically.
Architectural aesthetics isn't exclucively the province of architecture, among other arts. It's also a significant factor in the internal lives of scientists. A number have written about their bias toward beautiful solutions. Scientists make aesthetic judgments, too.13,14,15
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX
At our best, architects think outside the box. At their best, scientists are also creative and intuitive.16 While their arc as scientists must be toward precision in ways that architecture can't match, science thinking doesn't actually start inside the box. Science thinking includes intuition, but science is a platform that is designed to challenge intuition.
LIMITATIONS OF SCIENCE? ASK A SCIENTIST
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations, 2nd century CE
The emphasis on science and scholarship did not offend me, but I was struck by the absence of any reference to an obligation to make our learning useful to society.17
William F. Whyte, sociologist
You might be surprised to learn that scientists frequently say, not just admit, that all hypotheses are ultimately proven wrong. Overturning the conclusions of prior research is a core element in the culture of science. The search for truth is a powerful engine. Experimental results can be found to have holes in them that need to be corrected in later experimentation. Einstein found Newton's error, a small matter of not anticipating relativity. Quantum mechanics found Einstein's Achilles tendon, though Einstein never admitted to a slip or fall.
Science is unflinching, courageous really, considering the lifetime investments of scientists in research to move to the next hypothesis, potentully a more correct one. The scientific method is unrelenting. Science doesn't claim absolute truth. Ask any good scientist.
Reasons for Skepticism About Science
J.J. Gibson, developer of ecologic perception in psychology, famously critiqued research that wasn't explicit about its assumptions or had outright poor experiment design. For example, a lot of research is done by academics, and often their subjects are college students. It's dangerous to generalize based on data from such a narrow group, but, for readers of research, safeguards, really guardrails, are needed. A fondness for skepticism is probably the most effective of them.
We may be tempted to rely on and apply conclusions we shouldn't. Would other subjects respond differently? Without more representative, strictly structured testing, we can't know.
Some Reasons to Be Happy Incorporating the Work of Scientists
In my experience with scientists, they tend to be:
100% curious;
100% willing to challenge past basic research. Scientists spend a lot of energy looking to improve the quality and applicability of their work;
