Julianna Mollica

Architectural Design for Mental Health: Applying Environmental Neuroscience to Explore Biophilic Design as a Mental Health Intervention for Residential Spacess

Despite compelling evidence of how our environment impacts psychological and physiological health, there are limited explorations (a) of residential spaces and (b) using direct neural measurement.  Immersion in nature is understood to positively affect mental health, but the causal pathway is not well understood and translation to interior settings is limited. Translating these benefits to housing design may yield significant mental health benefits.  Further, analyses of the embodied response to the environment have traditionally faced methodological limitations owing to a dominant paradigm reliant upon laboratory-based experimentation and restrictive technology.  These challenges limit the ecological validity (real-world applicability) of evidence from environmental neuroscience.  Portable neuroimaging offers a way to explore how real-world environments impact mental health without these traditional limitations.  

Julie’s research aims to examine the effects of biophilic design on stress to inform mental health-promoting residential design. Her research combines self-reports and heart rate variability (HRV) monitoring with portable neuroimaging, a novel method in environmental analyses. The main goals are to (1) quantify the impact of design elements in naturalistic settings (real environments) on stress and (2) gauge the effectiveness of biophilic design as a mental health intervention.  To analyze the effectiveness of biophilic design, this research will explore the role of nature in interiors by analyzing the effectiveness of exposure to ‘real’ nature (more direct experiences of nature, such as a window with a ‘green’ view) versus exposure to ‘analogous’ nature (more indirect experiences of nature, such as biomimetic forms and patterns).  These inquiries will contribute robust empirical data that can be translated to evidence-based design of mental health-promoting affordable housing.