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Two buildings directly across from one another on Burnside Street in Portland, Oregon, presenting very different kinds andegrees of information to pedestrians: The building on the right offers infor mation about time and aging, individualbusiness activities, entrances, different room volumes inside, and much more. The building on the left has none of thatinformation. Instead it has a series of panels devoid of information beyond color, and following a relentlessly repetitivepattern, but arranged in what the designers hope is an artistically pleasing way. We may or may not prefer the view on thleft, over the more “old fashioned” view on the r ight, based upon our cultivated artistic tastes, our  preference for cleanliness, etc. But when it comes to the brain’s hunger for stimulating information about its world, the view on the leftoffers only superficial and poorly nourishing information.

Image: Michael Mehaffy

Science for Designers: Intelligence and theInformation EnvironmentMichael Meha!y and Nikos A. Salingaros

Looked at in a certain way, the human environment is a kind of massive delivery system for critically

useful information. It gives us information about obvious concerns, like where we are, where we

need to go, where we might find food, where to look out for dangers (speeding cars, unsafe drop-

offs, etc.) and many other things. And more subtly but importantly, it tells us where we will most likely

feel safe and well. It now seems that when we find an environment beautiful, a form of integrated

higher-level information telling us something important about the structure of the place, it is likely that

it’s doing something positive for us. A grove of delicious ripe fruit is likely to be much more beautiful

than one of diseased trees and rotted fruit — and that’s no coincidence.

Our aesthetic discernments have evolved as sophisticated assessments of what is likely to be in our 

best interest as organisms. Put simply, we have a natural hunger for beauty — because we have a

natural hunger for the deeper, biologically relevant characteristics of places and things that we find

beautiful. This works through information input and our neurophysiological system, which developed

to process and interpret information and to discern its relevant and often hidden meaning beneath

the obvious.

There is also evidence that we strongly prefer information grouped into patterns that we can mentally

manage most easily — as the psychologist George A. Miller showed, we seem to prefer “chunks” of 

two and three, and, combinations of these, up to about seven or so. We also seem to have a natural

affinity for the complex patterns that plants and other natural structures exhibit. This is one reason

that we have an instinctive affinity for certain biological patterns, termed biophilia (see our post

“Frontiers of Design Science: Biophilia”).

Research in environmental psychology reveals that we prefer information-rich environments, though

POINT OF VIEW / FEBRUARY 2012 / SCIENCE FOR DESIGNERS: INTELLIGENCE AND THE INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT

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A R C H I T E C T U R E C U LT U R E D E S I G N P R O D U C T S B L O G V I D E O S E V E N T S P R O J E C T S S P E C I F Y

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we like them to be easily broken up into manageable higher-level informational “chunks”: buildings

and spaces that have coherent relationships, that have identifiable pathways and entrances, that are

layered in room-like sequences, that offer enticement, that form complex circuits and spatial

relationships. The most attractive streets for pedestrians have these kinds of intricate, information-

rich structures. And we prefer that the surfaces of buildings present us with rich information that we

can “decompose” into manageable units that are still related among themselves and to the overall

whole (they define a “system”). This means, among other things, that the structures at different

scales do not have too abrupt a relationship to one another, but instead, have a coherent,

proportional kind of relationship. Geometrical coherence, both on the same scale, and across

different scales, seems to play a key role in what we perceive as beautiful and nourishing.

What about environmental art? Surely, as a cultural construct, art is a much more plastic

phenomenon, shaped by creative expression rather than biological needs? Well, the answer is! yes

and no. We can, indeed, distort the normal evolutionary relationships between people and their 

environments to create exciting, disturbing, provocative experiences of art — but such changes are

not without consequence. In exchange for these short-term benefits, we may well create long-term

negative consequences for human health and wellbeing. When we’re talking about gallery

experiences, this is probably a limited risk. But at the scale of ordinary human environments,

experienced hour after hour, day after day, there is growing evidence that the effect could be

disastrous.

One of the most fascinating and intriguing such impacts seems to be in the ability of the environment

to stimulate our ability to learn. Incredibly, it seems, the environment can make you smarter — or 

dumber! Some of the evidence for this surprising finding comes from animal studies. In an

experiment conducted by R. Kihsinger et al., some trout were bred in minimalist tanks while others

were raised in a more naturalistic setting — a tank that included a floor of pebbles. The brain size of 

those fish was then measured (specifically, the region of the brain that is responsible for intelligence),

and both compared to that of wild trout. It turns out that brain size for the three groups was markedly

different: significantly larger for those raised in a more naturalistic environment than for trout raised in

minimalist tanks. Yet when compared to trout caught in the wild that are exposed to a far richer visual

and otherwise experiential environment, the wild trout’s brain was larger than even the laboratory

trout raised in tanks lined with pebbles.

In related experiments by G. Kempermann et al., this time on mice, a significantly larger number of 

neurons were found in the region of the brain responsible for intelligence, in two similar groups, one

raised in an architecturally enriched environment, and the other raised in featureless cages. In a

separate study, A. Sale et al. found a vastly improved development of the visual system in the brains

of mice raised in architecturally enhanced vs minimalist environments. Note that the portions of the

brain responsible for visual acuity and intelligence are tightly interlinked. These experiments

vindicate a central finding by the father of modern neuropsychology, Donald O. Hebb, who claimed,

in the late 1940s, that an environment enriched with ordered complexity enhanced intelligence in a

permanent manner. Hebb concluded that rich experience of all types (and not only ordered visual

complexity) is necessary for the full development of animal intelligence.

 A scientific breakthrough came in the 1960s when M. Rosenzweig and his research group

established beyond any doubt that enrichment of the environment leads to structural changes in the

brain of animals. It seems that humans, and other animals before us, evolved what we now call

“intelligence” as a tool to interpret the complexity — incoming information — of the natural

environment. We eventually began to shape our own environment, and projected a similar 

complexity onto it — outgoing information — in the form of mural paintings, color, ornamentation, and

fractal shapes.

Since the beginning of our evolution into humans, characterized by our urge to build and to create

art, we have been involved in a two-way mutual reinforcement of environmental complexity of a very

particular kind. Damaging any piece of this interchange mechanism damages the entire system. But

what does this mean, in human terms? Countless studies have established that the rearing

environment dramatically impacts brain growth in children. In 1994 the Carnegie Task Force issued a

report warning that children raised in experientially poor environments suffer permanent setbacks as

compared to those raised in richer, more enhanced environments. This was in line with the Head

Start program begun several decades earlier in the US.

Turning to philosophy and robotics gives us a new insight into what might be going on. In 1998, A.

Clark and D. Chalmers proposed the “extended mind” concept, where the workings of our mind

actually extend beyond the brain and into our surroundings. An interplay takes place between our 

 

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thoughts and internal memories, and knowledge and information stored outside yet within ready

reach. Mobile robots do, in fact, use their environment as their memory — they have no stored

internal memory, and thus save enormous computational overhead. Rodney Brooks’ Mars Explorer 

works in precisely this way. Its ability to navigate its environment comes from an “intelligence” that

links internal processors with external information. This implies that the environment is crucial to the

development of our brain: our mind is an integral part of our environment, and if we wish it to engage

our intelligence, the environment should embody the same degree of organized complexity as our 

neurological processes themselves.

Two possible connective scenarios are thus strikingly contrasted. 1. In an information-sparse,

minimalist environment, our mind stops at the skull’s interior. 2. In a coherently complex

environment, our mind can extend into and interact with the visual information stored outside. In the

latter case, we are situated in a vastly richer information field that drives our brain’s growth in order 

to process and interpret this information.

Can Louis Sullivan make us smarter? Corner entrance to the Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company Store, Chicago, 1899.

Image: Nikos A. Salingaros.

Our brains’ connections change — even in adults, but especially so in the forming child brain — in

response to coherent complex inputs. Although data for the influence of architectural environments

on humans is sketchy, it has been established that an activity certainly alters the brain’s connectivity.

 Actively playing music or performing a sport, for example, reinforces the wiring of the neurons

responsible for that physical activity. Parents the world over encourage their children to take music

lessons, if they are in a position to do so, not to make them into professional musicians, but because

the ordered informational complexity of classical music is believed to help students perform better in

school.

Granted, it’s a leap from talking about mice and trout to suggesting that our everyday environment

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requires ordered complexity, and that this is not — as usually assumed — a simple matter of 

individual taste. If future experiments reveal influences on human beings, we expect to find that

environmental factors do indeed shape our own intelligence. Most importantly, their effect on the

developing intelligence of our children is bound to be even greater than on adults with fully-formed

brains.

So what are the lessons for designers of the human environment? The information content of our 

creations has a profound effect upon human life, and potentially, human wellbeing. We may decide to

create minimalist environments because somebody finds them ideologically exciting, arresting, or 

fitting expressions of industrial technology. That’s essentially what the early Modernist architects did

— and we’re slowly beginning to recognize the profoundly damaging consequences of that fateful

approach. Or we may decide to impart other kinds of information — the dramatic expressions of new

avant-garde art, the eye-catching advertising of products, or the packaging of exciting industrial

forms — or perhaps some mesmerizing combination of these. But to the extent this information

disrupts and displaces other kinds of information to which we are biologically attuned, the evidence

suggests, it can do great harm. So it seems that if we truly want the wellbeing of our users — if we

see ourselves as honored design professionals, with a duty of care — then we must work to imbue

our environments with the kind of information richness that human beings actually need. This is a

different way of looking at design, but perhaps a vitally needed one.

Michael Mehaffy is an urbanist and critical thinker in complexity and the built environment. He is a

 practicing planner and builder, and is known for his many projects as well as his writings. He has

been a close associate of the architect and software pioneer Christopher Alexander . Currently he is

a Sir David Anderson Fellow at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, a Visiting Faculty Associate

at Arizona State University; a Research Associate with the Center for Environmental Structure, Chris

 Alexander’s research center founded in 1967; and a strategic consultant on international projects,

currently in Europe, North America and South America.

Nikos A. Salingaros is a mathematician and polymath known for his work on urban theory ,

architectural theory, complexity theory, and design philosophy. He has been a close collaborator of the architect and computer software pioneer Christopher Alexander. Salingaros published 

substantive research on Algebras, Mathematical Physics, Electromagnetic Fields, and 

Thermonuclear Fusion before turning his attention to Architecture and Urbanism. He still is Professor 

of Mathematics at the University of Texas at San Antonio and is also on the Architecture faculties of 

universities in Italy , Mexico, and The Netherlands.

Read more posts from Michael and Nikos here.

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