  The impact of built environment on the human restorativeness has long been
argued; however, the interrelations between neuroscience and the built
environment, and the degree to which the built environment contributes to
increased human restorativeness has not been completely understood yet.
Understanding the interrelations between neuroscience and the built environment
is critical as 90% of time in a typical day is spent indoors and architectural
features impact the productivity, health and comfort of occupants. The goal of
this study is to bring a structured understanding of architecture and
neuroscience interactions in designed facilities and quantification of the
impact of design on human experience. The authors first built two virtual
environments (i.e., restorative and non-restorative) using the architectural
designs features related to human restorativeness identified by previous
research efforts. Next, user experiments were conducted in the two built
virtual environments including 22 people. The subjects were asked to conduct
navigational tasks while their bodily responses recorded by body area sensors
(e.g., EEG, GSR, and Eye-tracking). The result showed that human responses in
restorative and non-restorative environment had statistically significant
difference. This study serves as the first step of understanding human
responses in the virtual environment, and designing spaces that maximize human
experience.
