Approach to a Scientific Design Method for Programmable Schools towards ‘NeuroArchitecture’

This project synthesizes an ongoing experimental inquiry, the “Programmable School Research Project,” exploring the interaction between the brain, body, built and natural settings to inform affordable but high performance school design for Brazilian rural areas. In combination with biosensors and environmental sensors, the impact of school design on pupil outcomes could be measured on-site in both virtual reality visualizations and built settings by means of site-specific advanced design and low-cost prototyping through digital fabrication. Cutting-edge innovations may allow researchers, pupils, and their educational community to experience the consequences of design before it is built by testing their responses to specific learning tasks dealing with classroom attentiveness, privacy, socialization, wayfinding or familiarity.