Memories and brain maps: Representations of fear, risk and insecurity in downtown areas

Abstract

Departing from an approach focused on the cooperation between Architecture, Urbanism and Neuroscience, we investigate the impacts of the urban environment of the city of Campinas (São Paulo, Brazil) downtown area on the declarative semantic memories consolidated in the brain maps of the city’s inhabitants/users. Through field research with two hundred and sixty-six participants, the memories about this space/place are evoked and recorded in the testimonies made by these individuals, as well as represented in drawings made by themselves. We focused on the modulation of these memories through the emotions and feelings, respectively related to fear, risk and insecurity in this urban space. The main results are: the absence of identification with and the repulsion of the inhabitants/users of the public space; the restricted use of the urban space and the remote possibility of citizens “experiencing” the city; and the threat to the homeostatic balance of these individuals. Such discussions evince the responsibility of public policies, as well as of architects, designers and urban planners in the ways human beings feel, perceive, and appropriate the urban space.