Why do people feel more comfortable in one space than another?

The impact of neuroscience on architecture. Well it seems to be impacting on everything else, so why not?

This article Corridors of the Mind, reports on a conference in La Jolla, California, organised by the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture.

Architects “understand about aesthetics; they know about psychology. The next depth to which they can go is understanding the brain and how it works and why do people feel more comfortable in one space than another?”

This is an admittedly abstract concept. To help explain, architects often tell this story: Early in his career, when he was still struggling to find a cure for polio, Jonas Salk retreated to Umbria, Italy, to the monastery at the Basilica of Assisi. The 13th-century Franciscan monastery rises out of the hillside in geometric white stone, with Romanesque arches framing its quiet courtyards. Salk would insist, for the rest of his life, that something about this place—the design and the environment in which he found himself—helped to clear his obstructed mind, inspiring the solution that led to his famous polio vaccine.