NAAD

Course

NAAD is the first International Postgraduate degree Course working on the relationship between Neuroscience and Architecture.

The third edition of NAAD Course, which will start on November 23, 2020, will inaugurate the partnership between the Università Iuav, Venezia and  POLI.design, Milano.

NAAD is officially supported by ANFA, Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture www.anfarch.org (http://www.anfarch.org/programs-events/naad/), the most important study center in the world, founded in 2003 in San Diego , engaged in research and collaboration between architects and neuroscientists in order to explore, through rigorous methods, the relationship between human activities and architecture.

Didactics

Training objectives

The Master aims to train people capable of completing projects and services centered on improving the human experience of architectural and urban space, including design firms, real estate development groups, and private and public services management companies.

01 |  NAAD transmits the scientific knowledge aimed to favor an architectural design able to create attunement between users’ pre-cognitive expectations and multi-sensorial experience of space, according to the perception models developed by the neurosciences.

02 |  The PostGraduate creates the basis for students to understand how to create the conditions, through the composition of architectural elements (topological and proxemic relationships, geometry, light, rhythm, texture, color, materials, sound), for a regulated development of the emotions in the experience: this, in order to strengthen attention, memory, learning and the quality of social relations.

03 | The course developed its program with particular reference to Airports, Factories, Hospitals, Hotels, Parks, Prisons, Retails Malls, Schools, Senior Residences, Social Housings, Stadium, Student Housings, Urban Spaces, Workplaces, to provide the tools to create architecture suitable to its use, able to improve the economics figures (ROI, SROI, Asset Value) of private and public companies.

Didactic Plan

The Program is aimed at creating the theoretical foundations thanks to which specific knowledge can be developed for the development of different types of services and constructions.

Didactic Modules

FIRST MODULE
ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF THE ARCHITECTURAL PERCEPTION
During the first three months, students will be given the fundamentals to understand how our body is provided with a uniquely evolved range of systems able to receive signals from the outside world. Next, we will analyse the interaction between each element involved in the architectural process and the human sensory system. Light, topology, organisation and use of space, geometry, rhythm, texture and matters, sounds and smells: all these elements, prior individually and then through their integration, will be analysed concerning the physiology of the human sensory system.

The lasting of the Module will be made of 120 hours of lessons divided into three parts of 30 hours to be developed in three weeks, with other three classes’ clusters of 10 hours each month, aimed to experience applications and tests.

SECOND MODULE
ARCHITECTURE AND THE BODY-BRAIN SYSTEM
From the February to April 2020, students will deal with the evolution and nature of emotions and feelings up to the arising of conscience: on these fundamentals, they will focus the link between the body and its movements and consequently, deriving from these underpinnings, the development of language, thought and the same emotions. Finally, students will learn the bond running through empathy and architecture, from which each mean of design architectural atmospheres at one with the use of space is gathered. In the third week, students will work on the nature of the human pre-cognitive expectations, surging from the neuro-biological systems of primary emotions, related to the daily activities.

The lasting of the Module will be made of 120 hours of lessons divided into three parts of 30 hours to be developed in three weeks, with other three classes’ clusters of 10 hours each month, aimed to experience applications and tests.

THIRD MODULE
PRE-COGNITIVE HUMAN DEMANDS AND EXPERIENCE OF ARCHITECTURE
The third module will give the students the instruments to be able to transform and erect buildings in cities, taking care of the needs of users. NAAD will organise fourteen days on some study cases: Airports, Factories, Hospitals, Hotels, Parks, Prisons, Retail Malls, Schools, Senior Residences, Social Housings, Stadium, Student Housings, Urban Spaces, Workplaces. At the beginning of this last module will be launched the phase of the design for the students’ thesis.

The lasting of the Module will be made of 120 hours of lessons divided in three parts of 30 hours to be developed in three weeks, with other three classes’ clusters of 10 hours each month, aimed to experience applications and tests.

FOURTH MODULE
DESIGNING THE ATTUNEMENT
It will be divided into two parts: a 260-hour project work during which the participants of the Master, even within the companies that funded their Grants, or at other selected companies, each for their subject field of research, will develop an application design.

This phase of project planning, followed by a tutor with specific experience in the sector, preceded by 15 hours of lectures to prepare the thesis, will be carried out through in situ studies, interviews of the users of the places, focus groups, photographic surveys: all finalized to take control of the analysis tools provided by the Master. The second part of the 100-hour module will consist of the project translation of this experience into a final thesis.

Employment Opportunities

Thanks to neuroscience and environmental psychology studies, the mechanisms of interaction between spaces and men have been deepened. In recent years, real estate operators have shown themselves to be increasingly attentive to people’s psychological and physical well-being. In the future, more positions will be opened, within public and private companies, for professionals who have gained skills and knowledge that allow them to operate in a multidisciplinary perspective.

This Master’s mission is to develop knowledge inherent in the relationship between neuroscientific research and human responses within the built environment.

The first graduates (2017-2018 Edition) have been embarked on research paths within university institutions, have been hired within design companies, or have started their consultancy activities related to the specific educational path.

Admission

Requirements

Admission procedures, the required qualifications and any additional requirements, including access to individual training activities:
master’s or three-year degree in architecture and engineering, psychology, philosophy, medicine, or neuroscience, good knowledge of the English language, a CV and a description of the reasons are required.

Deadlines

Deadline for admission: October 5th, 2020

Price

Given the global pandemic crisis, a decision was made to allow students to opt for 100% online teaching. Therefore, the course will be developed in two ways: face to face and online, through the platform.

The cost of attendance in Venice and Milan is € 12,000
The cost of the digital course, in live streaming, is € 9,000