Researchers: Build Better to Protect Our Brains

As artificial intelligence makes vast amounts of knowledge instantly available and takes over routine data processing, the spaces where people live and work may become more important to human performance. Neuroarchitecture researcher Cleo Valentine says modern offices and cities often drain the energy needed for creativity and problem-solving.

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If AI gives us immediate access to an enormous amount of knowledge, the question is what we do with that knowledge?

Valentine argues that creativity is not simply a natural advantage. It requires training and practice, and the built environment should help people access higher cognitive abilities. She says human strengths will increasingly include lateral thinking, creativity, problem-solving and social cohesion as AI handles more routine tasks.

The researcher, associated with the Swedish research institute Rise and the universities of Harvard and Cambridge, says buildings should support health and well-being in all its forms, from stress regulation to cognitive performance. She wants brain health and society’s collective “brain capital” to be treated as a strategic investment rather than only a healthcare issue.

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How do we design the built environment in a way that supports people’s health and well-being in all its forms?

She describes today’s built environment as a source of constant, low-level stress. Noise, invisible light flicker and poor acoustics can strain the nervous system and impose large costs on society. Valentine also says modern artificial environments lack mathematical patterns, such as fractals and the golden ratio, that characterized the natural world in which the human body evolved. As a result, the brain’s visual cortex may need more energy to process what it sees, creating an invisible cognitive burden.

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We are also seeing an absolute flood of neurological conditions today, and I believe the environments we have created play an enormous role in this.