Andrea Jelic
Currently, I am an Assistant Professor in Space for Healthy Organizations at KU Leuven (Belgium), in a joint position in the Research[x]Design group, Department of Architecture, and the Building Physics section, Department of Civil Engineering. I am an architect, researcher, and educator working at the intersection of architecture, enactive-embodied cognitive science, and phenomenology. Through this interdisciplinary lens, my research explores how the built environment affects the lived-living body—i.e., the body with its experiential, psycho-physiological, affective, and social dimensions. This research aims to promote the understanding that sustainable and healthy architecture and urban spaces is a basic human right due to the fundamental link between our minds, bodies, and environments in which we live, work, and play.
My current research interests and projects have the notions of embodiment, affordances, and experience at their core and include:
- enactive, embodied, affective understanding of architectural experience;
- investigating the relationship between body, stress, language, and spatial experience (“Stress Assessment Tool for Architectural Design” project supported by Aalborg University);
- designing opportunities for play in the built environment through co-creation and embodied cognition research (project supported by Capital of Children Playful Minds);
- social sustainability, user perspective and empathy thinking in design;
- the interplay between affective atmospheres, politics, and design of future heritage architecture (with a forthcoming special issue “Embodiment and meaning-making: Interdisciplinary perspectives on architectural heritage” in The Journal of Architecture)
- social sustainability, user perspective and empathy thinking in design (education) and (learning to) design for the diversity of bodies and user experiences;
- "Bodies at Work" focusing on the interplay between physical work environment, lived-living bodies, individual differences, and health as resilience, with an emphasis on how organizations can implement health promotion strategies for the spectrum of user needs, bodily and cognitive skills (e.g., neurodiversity)
Contact: andrea.jelic@kuleuven.be
My current research interests and projects have the notions of embodiment, affordances, and experience at their core and include:
- enactive, embodied, affective understanding of architectural experience;
- investigating the relationship between body, stress, language, and spatial experience (“Stress Assessment Tool for Architectural Design” project supported by Aalborg University);
- designing opportunities for play in the built environment through co-creation and embodied cognition research (project supported by Capital of Children Playful Minds);
- social sustainability, user perspective and empathy thinking in design;
- the interplay between affective atmospheres, politics, and design of future heritage architecture (with a forthcoming special issue “Embodiment and meaning-making: Interdisciplinary perspectives on architectural heritage” in The Journal of Architecture)
- social sustainability, user perspective and empathy thinking in design (education) and (learning to) design for the diversity of bodies and user experiences;
- "Bodies at Work" focusing on the interplay between physical work environment, lived-living bodies, individual differences, and health as resilience, with an emphasis on how organizations can implement health promotion strategies for the spectrum of user needs, bodily and cognitive skills (e.g., neurodiversity)
Contact: andrea.jelic@kuleuven.be
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Call for papers by Andrea Jelic
We strongly encourage contributions that address the above topics from an interdisciplinary perspective, crossing between fields such as architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, visual arts, geography, anthropology, cognitive science, philosophy and literature. Papers may address theoretical questions, discuss methodologies, focus on relevant case studies or merge different approaches.
Journal Articles (peer-reviewed) by Andrea Jelic
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Interdisciplinary approaches for
uncovering the impacts of architecture on collective behaviour’.
Available at: http://constructivist.info/11/3/589
Upshot: This commentary highlights the relevance of understanding design research as a variety of second-order cybernetic practice. It does so by illustrating possible contributions of this view to several concrete issues surrounding the introduction of neuroscientific framework to architectural design. Based on the implications of Sweeting's article, I suggest that the specific case of an interdisciplinary dialogue between architecture and cognitive science can provide a plausible testing ground as a new research field for second-order cybernetic practice and second-order science.
strength for a more concrete approach to the issue of architectural experience in its multisensorial
richness. By placing human experience at the centre of architectural design –
acknowledging the phenomenal body as the only genuine architectural subject – this specific
union of the latest neuroscientific research with the extensive phenomenological legacy
can offer valuable insights for interpreting our embodiment and how we relate with our
architectural environment. Accordingly, the notion of “pre-reflective” architecture emphasizes
the fundamentally embodied and largely pre-conscious interdependence of architectural
spaces and our perceptual experience. In a nutshell, the neurophenomenological investigations
of architecture aim to identify and approximate the conditions of embodied experience of
architecture, while revealing that a purely conceptual engagement with architectural spaces is
only a misconception. Also, it raises awareness of the embodied nature of the design process
itself, and the need to be attentive to the discordance between the architectural tools for design
and representation, designed on the basis of a physical-mathematical conception of space, and
the spatiality of the phenomenal world in which we live.
explanations of how people perceive and experience
architectural environments have largely justified the
initial belief in the value of neuroscience for architecture.
However, a systematic development of a coherent theoretical
and experimental framework is missing. To investigate
the neurophysiological reactions related to the
appreciation of ambiances, we recorded the electroencephalographic
(EEG) signals in an immersive virtual
reality during the appreciation of interior designs. Such
data have been analyzed according to the working
hypothesis that appreciated environments involve embodied
simulation mechanisms and circuits mediating
approaching stimuli. EEG recordings of 12 healthy subjects
have been performed during the perception of three-dimensional
interiors that have been simulated in a CAVE
system and judged according to dimensions of familiarity,
novelty, comfort, pleasantness, arousal and presence. A
correlation analysis on personal judgments returned that
scores of novelty, pleasantness and comfort are positively
correlated, while familiarity and novelty are in negative
way. Statistical spectral maps reveal that pleasant, novel
and comfortable interiors produce a de-synchronization of
the mu rhythm over left sensorimotor areas. Interiors
judged more pleasant and less familiar generate an activation
of left frontal areas (theta and alpha bands), along an
involvement of areas devoted to spatial navigation. An
increase in comfort returns an enhancement of the theta
frontal midline activity. Cerebral activations underlying
appreciation of architecture could involve different mechanisms
regulating corporeal, emotional and cognitive
reactions. Therefore, it might be suggested that people’s
experience of architectural environments is intrinsically
structured by the possibilities for action.
Journal Articles by Andrea Jelic
Conference proceedings and papers by Andrea Jelic
Papers by Andrea Jelic
Drafts by Andrea Jelic
October 18th, 2019.
Berlage Rooms (1&2)
This one-day transdisciplinary colloquium will explore the links between (cultural) affordances, affective tonalities, shifting politics, collective memory, and the design of architectural heritage. By entangling the perspectives of architecture, embodied and affective cognition, phenomenological philosophy, affective geography, and heritage and memory studies, the colloquium explores how architectural heritage and places of memory are produced, registered, and experienced.
We aim to address some key questions in this emerging area of research such as:
- bodily, spatial, and affective experience in places of heritage;
- nature and mechanisms of affective engagement with the built environment;
- affordances, affective atmospheres, and collective memory;
- socio-political factors influencing cultural affordances and understanding of heritage;
and ultimately, how can these be (un)intentionally created and manipulated through architectural design.
The colloquium will bring esteemed scholars from disciplines of architecture, philosophy of cognitive science, and affective geography with the aim to discuss this emerging new field and to build new networks for future collaboration.
We strongly encourage contributions that address the above topics from an interdisciplinary perspective, crossing between fields such as architecture, urban design, landscape architecture, visual arts, geography, anthropology, cognitive science, philosophy and literature. Papers may address theoretical questions, discuss methodologies, focus on relevant case studies or merge different approaches.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Interdisciplinary approaches for
uncovering the impacts of architecture on collective behaviour’.
Available at: http://constructivist.info/11/3/589
Upshot: This commentary highlights the relevance of understanding design research as a variety of second-order cybernetic practice. It does so by illustrating possible contributions of this view to several concrete issues surrounding the introduction of neuroscientific framework to architectural design. Based on the implications of Sweeting's article, I suggest that the specific case of an interdisciplinary dialogue between architecture and cognitive science can provide a plausible testing ground as a new research field for second-order cybernetic practice and second-order science.
strength for a more concrete approach to the issue of architectural experience in its multisensorial
richness. By placing human experience at the centre of architectural design –
acknowledging the phenomenal body as the only genuine architectural subject – this specific
union of the latest neuroscientific research with the extensive phenomenological legacy
can offer valuable insights for interpreting our embodiment and how we relate with our
architectural environment. Accordingly, the notion of “pre-reflective” architecture emphasizes
the fundamentally embodied and largely pre-conscious interdependence of architectural
spaces and our perceptual experience. In a nutshell, the neurophenomenological investigations
of architecture aim to identify and approximate the conditions of embodied experience of
architecture, while revealing that a purely conceptual engagement with architectural spaces is
only a misconception. Also, it raises awareness of the embodied nature of the design process
itself, and the need to be attentive to the discordance between the architectural tools for design
and representation, designed on the basis of a physical-mathematical conception of space, and
the spatiality of the phenomenal world in which we live.
explanations of how people perceive and experience
architectural environments have largely justified the
initial belief in the value of neuroscience for architecture.
However, a systematic development of a coherent theoretical
and experimental framework is missing. To investigate
the neurophysiological reactions related to the
appreciation of ambiances, we recorded the electroencephalographic
(EEG) signals in an immersive virtual
reality during the appreciation of interior designs. Such
data have been analyzed according to the working
hypothesis that appreciated environments involve embodied
simulation mechanisms and circuits mediating
approaching stimuli. EEG recordings of 12 healthy subjects
have been performed during the perception of three-dimensional
interiors that have been simulated in a CAVE
system and judged according to dimensions of familiarity,
novelty, comfort, pleasantness, arousal and presence. A
correlation analysis on personal judgments returned that
scores of novelty, pleasantness and comfort are positively
correlated, while familiarity and novelty are in negative
way. Statistical spectral maps reveal that pleasant, novel
and comfortable interiors produce a de-synchronization of
the mu rhythm over left sensorimotor areas. Interiors
judged more pleasant and less familiar generate an activation
of left frontal areas (theta and alpha bands), along an
involvement of areas devoted to spatial navigation. An
increase in comfort returns an enhancement of the theta
frontal midline activity. Cerebral activations underlying
appreciation of architecture could involve different mechanisms
regulating corporeal, emotional and cognitive
reactions. Therefore, it might be suggested that people’s
experience of architectural environments is intrinsically
structured by the possibilities for action.
October 18th, 2019.
Berlage Rooms (1&2)
This one-day transdisciplinary colloquium will explore the links between (cultural) affordances, affective tonalities, shifting politics, collective memory, and the design of architectural heritage. By entangling the perspectives of architecture, embodied and affective cognition, phenomenological philosophy, affective geography, and heritage and memory studies, the colloquium explores how architectural heritage and places of memory are produced, registered, and experienced.
We aim to address some key questions in this emerging area of research such as:
- bodily, spatial, and affective experience in places of heritage;
- nature and mechanisms of affective engagement with the built environment;
- affordances, affective atmospheres, and collective memory;
- socio-political factors influencing cultural affordances and understanding of heritage;
and ultimately, how can these be (un)intentionally created and manipulated through architectural design.
The colloquium will bring esteemed scholars from disciplines of architecture, philosophy of cognitive science, and affective geography with the aim to discuss this emerging new field and to build new networks for future collaboration.