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Neuroscience Applied to Architectural Design
NAAD Master is promoted by
| faculty
SCIENTIFIC RESPONSIBLE
Davide Ruzzon
COORDINATOR
Roberto Fulciniti
BOARD
Roberta Albiero, Alain Berthoz, Renato Bocchi, Harry Mallgrave, Juhani Pallasmaa, Alberto Perez-Gomez, Sarah Robinson, Giovanni Vecchiato
TUTOR
Andréa de Paiva, Richard Jedon, Clarissa Machado, Natalia Olszewska, Antonio Sorrentino.
PEOPLE CAN LIVE BETTER.
Neuroscience applied
to our urban environment
enhances our daily life.
Each day we are moved by expectations: these float in our conscious mind and into the deeper level of our being. Neuroscience and architecture, biology, philosophy, anthropology, art, and science, now can help us to rebuild a richer attunement between us and the place we live. At NAAD in Venice, we have convened some of the most important professors, professionals, operators, managers and architects in these fields to bridge the gap between scientific theories and design.
| goals
Addressed to architects, designers and consultants of companies the Master aims to train people capable of completing projects and services centred on improving the human experience of architectural and urban space, to be included within design firms, real estate development groups and private and public services management companies.
01
NAAD transmits the scientific knowledge aimed to favor an architectural design able to create attunement between users' pre-cognitive expectations and multi-sensorial experience of space, according to the perception models developed by the neurosciences.
Urban spaces, and transitions inside/outside buildings, is a crucial topic our course looks carefully, intending to integrate scales of perception, through an emotionally-driven approach, with significant outcomes on the health.
02
The PostGraduate Master creates the basis for students to understand how to make the conditions, through the composition of architectural elements (topological and proxemic relationships, geometry, light, rhythm, texture, color, materials, sound), for a regulated development of the emotions in the experience: this, to strengthen attention, memory, learning and the quality of social relations.
03
The course developed its program with particular reference to Airports, Factories, Hospitals, Hotels, Parks, Prisons, Retails Malls, Schools, Senior Residences, Social Housings, Student Housings, Urban Spaces, Workplaces, to provide the tools to create architecture suitable to its use, and also able to improve the economics figures (ROI, SROI, Asset Value) of private and public companies.
| programs
FIRST MODULE
ANATOMY AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ARCHITECTURAL PERCEPTION
During the first three months, students will be given the fundamentals to understand how our body is provided with a uniquely evolved range of systems able to receive signals from the outside world, focusing on body movements. next, we will analyze each element involved in the architectural process and the human sensory system. light, topology, organization, and use of space, geometry, rhythm, texture, matters, sounds, and smells: all these elements, prior individually and then through their integration, will be analyzed concerning the physiology of the human sensory system along with the interaction into architecture. also, students will deal with the evolution and nature of emotions and feelings, up to the arising of conscience. all this, inside a philosophical framework grounded in neuro-phenomenology and pragmatism.
In the first module, for all the NAAD students, the program starts with two weeks of classes held only in presence. Each day, from Monday to Friday, we will work on science-based lessons, in the mornings, and with lessons about their correlated architectural outcomes, during the afternoons. Only the third week, classes be also held in remote mode for those following the hybrid course from home..
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CALENDAR I-II-III week
SECOND MODULE
Architecture and the body-brain system
Students will work on the nature of the human pre-cognitive emotional expectations surging from daily activities. From February to April, students will focus on the link between the body and its movements and, consequently, deriving from these underpinnings, developing the different patterns of interaction with space. Finally, students will learn how to translate awaited emotions in a dynamical perception of shapes able to attune humans' needs with architecture. Related consequences in cognitive performances, health, well-being, and improved social relationships are all the classes' outcomes will focus on in the course's module. Some lessons will also be directed to gain knowledge of physiological and brain activity measurements.
In the second module, for all the NAAD students, the program starts with two weeks of classes only in physical presence. Each day, from Monday to Friday, we will work on science-based lessons, in the mornings, and with lessons about their architectural design implications, in the afternoons. Only in the third week, classes be also held in remote mode for those following the hybrid course from home.
read more
CALENDAR I-II-III week
THIRD MODULE
PRE-COGNITIVE HUMAN DEMANDS AND THE DESIGN OF ARCHITECTURE
The third module will give the students the instruments to transform and erect buildings in cities, taking care of users' needs. NAAD will organize fifteen days on some study cases: Airports, Factories, Offices, Malls, Furniture, Hospitals, Prisons, Schools, Social Housings, Student Housings, Senior Residences, Sacred Spaces, Parks and City Planning. In the first part of the daily lessons, for each of the investigated fields, the course will address the expected emotional mixtures featuring the specific typology. Then, in the second slot of each class, some key projects will be introduced by firms, managing companies, or designers who developed these actual study cases.
In the third module, all three weeks' programs run in a twofold modality: those enrolled in NAAD in hybrid mode following from home joined through virtual rooms while those working in Venice in the class. Each day, from Monday to Friday, our course will present 15 seminars intersecting science-based approaches with discussions about design case studies, with final debates also involving professionals from managing and developer companies focused in the 15 fields detected.
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CALENDAR I-II-III week
FOURTH MODULE
DESIGNING THE ATTUNEMENT
It will be divided into two parts.
1. THESIS
Among the themes studied in the third module, each student has to select the thesis theme by the end of 2023. Two tutors will follow thesis development: one with a specific neuroscientific background and another skilled in the particular sector of the thesis's interest.
Before starting with the design, followed by a scientist, students must develop the design's theoretical framework in two phases. First, they will collect papers focused on the topic by the end of Febraury. Second, they will complete the theorethical framework, by the end of April.
After this step, students will transfer the results and targets previously defined in their design, supported by a second advisor selected from companies, and design firms, grounded on thesis topics.
In previous NAAD editions, professors that have supported thesis' theoretical framework development have been Kate Jeffery, Daniela Lucangeli, Isabella Pasqualini, Chiara Ionio, Natalia Olszweska, Cleo Valentine, Alain Berthoz, Bill Browing, Colin Ellard, Sergei Gephstein, Oshin Vartanian, and Giovanni Vecchiato.
Alain Berthoz
Colin Ellard
Sergei Gepshtein
Kate Jeffery
Oshin Vartanian
Giovanni Vecchiato
2. INTERNSHIP
Within the companies, and design firms, invited to present their works in the Third Module, or other adequately selected companies, each student for her/his typology, or field of research, will develop a 260-hour internship, during which he/she will progress with the architectural design, as the advancement of the thesis path.
| INFO 
01| ENROLLMENT and 6 NAAD SCHOLARSHIP CALL
APPLICATION NAAD 2023/24 go to these links:
> Educational offer
> Enrollment
We inform you that in the coming days will be published Call for 6 Scholarships of 6.000 euros each;
→ PROCEDURE
1. Registration for the admission competition must be carried out exclusively via the online procedure, by registering at the Sportello Informatico (SpIN).
2. candidates must connect to the Sportello Internet, Login and select, from the MENU at the top right, the items > Segreteria and > Preiscrizioni (or) > Application for admission, in the case of former Iuav students).
→ VERY IMPORTANT
1. Visa for study purposes
The Visa must be requested by the students, and presented by the start date of the teaching activities (November 23, 2023).
2. Applicants with a qualification obtained in a country not belonging to the Processo di Bologna (see list) must present:
> Statement of Comparability issued by CIMEA (Information Center on Mobility and Academic Equivalences);
or as an ALTERNATIVE
> Declaration of Value, issued by the competent Italian Embassy or Consulate for the area
CIMEA → VERY IMPORTANT
CIMEA will be closed from 29 July to 3 September inclusive. It is very important to check the release times of the CIMEA and the Declaration of Value, as an alternative to the first.
3. Applicants with a qualification obtained in a country belonging to the Processo di Bologna (see list) must present:
> Copy of the degree certificate in the original language;
> Diploma supplement or transcript of records in Italian or in English which shows the EQF (European Qualifications Framework) of the qualification held.
4. These documents must be uploaded, together with all the required documentation, by the deadline set for the submission of the application (15th Sept).
5. CV in European format (PLEASE NOTE)
The CV must clearly and completely report the data requested in the European CV template available
-- The cost of attendance in Venice is € 13,500
-- The cost of the hybrid digital+physical course, is € 9,000
The deadline for applications for the master in Neuroscience Applied to Architectural Design has been moved to September 29th, 2023, H 12.00
02| Teaching Activities Timing
We defined two different ways to take part at NAAD Course; one is the Presence Modality in Venice, another is the Hydrid Modality.
In the presence modality students will follow all the weeks in Venice, while in hybrid modality, students will have four weeks of classes' in presence', in Venice, in the first and second module.
As suggested in the detailed program published in this website, at the start of the first and second module, the two weeks of entire presence for all will be attached, permitting us to reduce the lenght of the two periods in Venice.
Students could use the Iuav Library and all University's services between the weeks of classes.
During the first two weeks of the modules 1 and 2, science-based lessons will be followed, in the afternoons, by classes about applications on design process. Lessons will start at 9.30 in the morning and, after a pause of one hour and half, will be concluded working on design applications at the 19.00.
In the first module, after the third week of classes, the further Monday, a scientific tutor will introduce different kinds of Tests and Experiences Classes (TEC) to be developed in a team or alone to apply the knowledge acquired the week before. This 'homework' will be accomplished during the next two weeks, and we'll be sharing in a Seminar on Friday at the end of the homework's second week.
In the second module, after the third week of lessons, the following Monday, the NAAD Scientific Responsible will hold (NAL) Neuroscience Applied Labs on the architectural translation of the knowledge acquired, particularly regarding the thesis topics.
03| MODULE III - Week III
From Monday 10th, to Friday 14th July, NAAD welcome you to the third week of the Third Module of the course, which engages a series of seminars and lectures revolving around 'The Shapes of Human Expectations'. This week, we will delve into how architecture, daily life, and emotions play vital roles in the design and experience of IN PRISONS, INDUSTRIAL WORKPLACES, SHOPPING MALLS, REFUGEE CAMPS AND WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE
