Between Objective and Subjective Architectural Experiences: Conceptualizing Refractive Neuroarchitecture Phenomenology

Abstract

This essay aims to develop a conceptual framework to assess how people experience the built environment through a critical review of neuroarchitecture, architectural phenomenology, and neurophenomenology. Our experiences with the environment are mediated by our brains, such as through neurophysiological responses to colors, shapes, or heights. These experiences are conventionally defined as “universal” and “objective.” Additionally, our experiences are constantly refracted by our unconscious subjective cognitive filters in the brain. Based on the critical literature review and synthesis, this study conceptualizes our phenomenological, natural, everyday architectural experience as refractive neuroarchitecture phenomenology, defined as a study of humans’ subjective architectural experiences through an epistemological and methodological convergence of the first-and second-person phenomenological and third-person neuroscientific methods. This conceptual framework maintains that architectural experience is fundamentally subjective and predominantly unconscious; however, it can be assessed through objective neuroscientific and subjective phenomenological methods. It holds intellectual significance as it seeks to integrate both objective and subjective epistemologies and methodologies into architectural research, fostering methodological innovations for empirical studies.