University Research

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 03 mar 2015

In addition to just aesthetics, architects are now applying neuroscience, by studying how brain reacts to various environments through brain scanners, to design schools, hospitals, community spaces etc. Eve Edelstein, president of consulting firm Innovative Design Science, says 'Understanding the power and significance of design is not a luxury. It has a direct impact on wellness issues and a direct influence on activity within that space.' According to Betsey Olenick Dougherty of Dougherty + Dougherty Architects, 'Visual access to sky, trees and landscape stimulates brain function. Providing vistas throughout the facility and particularly in classrooms has been a major strategy in the design of this building (Corona del Mar High School, Newport Beach, California).' Justin Hollander, co-author of the book 'Cognitive Architecture' and urban planning professor at Tufts University, says 'Patterns matter. And edges matter. The research argues that not only do we need order but our brain likes hearing stories...When you go to Times Square, you're told a story. You go to Disneyland, it's a story.' He further adds, 'Humans have a clear bias for curves over straight or sharp lines. Studies have shown that curves elicit feelings of happiness and elation, while jagged and sharp forms tend to connect to feelings of pain and sadness.' Hospitals and care centers are now being designed based on how brains of Alzheimer's patients reacts or how lighting affects patient's sleep cycle. Neuroscience shows light triggers brain reactions far beyond vision. 'It has an impact on heart rate.' says Edelstein. Michael Arbib of University of Southern California Brain Project and the vice president of the Academy of Architecture and Neuroscience, says 'Smart architecture can learn from brain science. To use artificial intelligence to build buildings that can better interact with people...is going to be very applicable to a home.' Read on...

Al Jazeera: Smart buildings- Architects using brain science for design guidance
Author: Haya El Nasser

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 23 sep 2014

Professor Brian Wansink of Cornell University, has been conducting research on eating habits and behaviors of consumers through his Food and Brand Lab, which he founded in 1997 while being at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His new book 'Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life' is just published and focuses on understanding surrounding and environment at five places - home, favorite restaurants, favorite grocery store, work-place, children's school - that influences eating behaviors and find solutions by designing them in such a way that encourages healthier eating habits. According to him, 'It's easier to become slim by design than slim by willpower.' Here are nine recommendations from him while doing a kitchen makeover - (1) Move healthier foods to visible spots (2) Make tempting foods invisible and inconvenient (3) Declutter your kitchen (4) Make your kitchen less friendly for lounging (5) Think twice before buying big packages of food (6) Use smaller serving bowls and spoons (7) Use smaller, narrower drinking glasses (8) Serve food from the counter or the stove (9) Avoid doing other activities while eating. Read on...

USA TODAY: 9 ways to lose weight by rearranging your kitchen
Author: Nanci Hellmich

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 26 aug 2014

Bringing customers or users into the design process is a practice that architects and designers often adhere to. But when users are children like for example in a design process for a school or playground, it might be considered as a difficult and challenging task. Not so, if the ongoing research by Dr. Maria Patsarika and her team at Sheffield University, is taken into account. More and more architects and landscape designers are bringing younger generation into the design process. The practice of having participation from children in the design process is not new and has been mentioned in research studies conducted in 1960s & 1970s. Kevin Lynch, an urban planner, launched the UNESCO project 'Growing Up in Cities' in 1977 that utilized children's creative capacities. Dr. Patsarika's research has looked at the way architects and children communicate with each other. Architects interviewed for the research acknowledged that children brought fresh perspectives and uninhibited curiosity, leading them to explore alternative scenarios. Although children can be disruptive and unpredictable to work with but their overall impact on the design process is considered to be positive by most architects. Read on...

The Conversation: What architects can learn from designing with children
Author: Maria Patsarika

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 05 jun 2014

Team of researchers from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Professors Scott White, Jeffrey S. Moore & Nancy Sottos and graduate students Brett Krull, Windy Santa Cruz & Ryan Gergely, have developed materials that not only heal, but regenerate. The new regenerating materials are capable to fill in large cracks and holes by regrowing materials. The team advanced their previous research on vascular materials and using specially formulated fibers that disintegrate, the researchers can create materials with networks of capillaries similar to biological circulatory systems. For regenerating materials, two adjoining, parallel capillaries are filled with regenerative chemicals that flow out as a result of damage. A gel is formed when the two liquids mix with each other, spreads and fills the gap created by the damage. Finally the gel hardens into a strong polymer and restores plastic's mechanical strength. In addition to variety of commercial usage, these self-repair materials will find particular use for parts and products that are difficult to replace or repair, like in aerospace applications. Read on...

University of Illinois News Bureau: Regenerating plastic grows back after damage
Author: Liz Ahlberg

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 may 2014

Researchers from MIT, Lisa Freed and Martin Kolewe, used fabrication techniques from microelectronics industry to make thin sheets of biorubber with microscale rectangular holes of uniform dimensions and then stacked these with precise positions of pores one over the other. The stacking process was done with the help of a programmable machine adapted from electronics industry used to stack thin material layers to build circuit boards and integrated circuit (IC) packages. Researchers demonstrated pore patterns that could produce 'interwoven musle-like bundles' out of mouse muscle cells and rat neonatal heart cells. According to Professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic of Columbia University, this new scaffolding allowed the researchers to form tissue that mimics an important structural quality of heart tissue called 'anisotropy'. Freed and Kolewe say that their research provides unprecedented level of control over arrangement of pore networks and can lead to 'a whole new design space' to further experiment the 3-dimensional factors that influence cell alignment and tissue formation and could serve as a platform for the development of implantable organ tissue. Read on...

MIT Technology Review: A Manufacturing Tool Builds 3-D Heart Tissue
Author: Mike Orcutt

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 29 may 2014

The design of student learning programs, especially for young children, should be based on their age and mental development. In the article, Priyakorn Pusawiro of King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, explores the importance of Brain-Based Learning (BBL) in creating a better learning environment. BBL is one of the approach that brings concepts and research from neuroscience, biology and psychology, and defines relationship between learning and brain, to keep students motivated and inspired to learn. The pace and complexity of lessons that are taught should be balanced according to the student's capacity and maturity to assist them develop confidence and improve their learning ability. While designing the learning environment, both inside classroom and outdoor, educators should focus on enhancing learning experience and exposure to new things. Moreover interaction between fellow classmates should be encouraged to imbibe social skills. Emphasis should be given to hands-on learning and the discovery process. Media and learning materials should include concepts and examples from daily lives that children can relate to. Technology assisted learning should be encouraged and incorporated in the curriculum. Read on...

The Nation: Design media technology and learning space in brain-based learning
Author: Priyakorn Pusawiro

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 12 jan 2014

Big data and analytics is finding applications in businesses and governments for better decision and policy making. Stephen Wolfram is talking about 'personal analytics' (converting life into packets of personal data) as the next big thing and introduced an app on facebook based on this principle. On the same line researchers and thinkers are proposing that cities can also be considered as sources of data and information that can be utilized for better urban planning and development. This concept of 'quantitative urbanism' is finding support from leaders in software, consultancy and infrastructure industries. According to Assaf Biderman of MIT, this science will assist in making the cities 'more human'. In 2003 research team led by Geoffrey West of Santa Fe Institute collected large data sets of select urban centers and obtained information on various parameters from multiple sources and put them into a single database. The results reduced the life of a city to a mathematical rule - 'unified theory of urban living', similar to what Max Kleiber showed in the form of zoological rules that suggested that all forms of life follow the same equation that combines size, energy use and life expectancy. But cities don't follow Kleiber's law exactly - they don't slow down when they become bigger in size. On the contrary they accelerate, becoming more productive, creative, efficient and sustainable. Other model of urban thinking utilizes mathematics of complexity which views the city as a combination of networks and information. But this data intensive approaches on thinking about cities may not be sufficient & complete and other ways of looking at the city must be considered too. Read on...

New Statesman: Architecture - What does Big Data mean for our cities?
Author: Leo Hollis

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 28 oct 2013

'Design Fiction (DF)' is a design concept that envisions an imaginary future and builds objects around it. DF is part of the design process and designers often use fiction as a starting point to create their work. Author, Matthew Ward, who teaches design at Goldsmiths (University of London) suggests the use of DF in the design education and advocates that it should be a critical part of the curriculum. He proposes a preamble of a manifesto towards a design education that embraces and interrogates the role and importance of fiction in design - (1) All design is ideological (2) Fiction as a testing ground for reality (3) Re-inscribing behavior and responsibility (4) The decisions you make have consequences: prototype them in the stories you tell (5) Normalize to persuade (6) Make space for experimentation (7) Think through making (8) Things that work don't create interesting stories (9) Build from ideas to aesthetics (10) Things live in their interaction with their context (11) People are the protagonists in the production of reality (12) Craft the narrative (13) Don't mistake the training for a race (14) Understand what your fiction is doing in reality. Read on...

Medium: Design Fiction as Pedagogic Practice - Towards a fictionally biased design education
Author: Matthew Ward

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 23 sep 2013

Scientists are combining two existing technologies - spray based coating of nanoparticles developed by the team led by Dr. Paula Hammond of MIT and nanoparticle manufacturing technology called PRINT (Particle Replication In Non-wetting Templates) platform developed by researchers led by Dr. Joseph DeSimone of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Dr. William R. Kenan Jr. of North Carolina State University - to mass produce uniform nanoparticles with customized layers of material that can carry drugs or other molecule for variety of uses in drug delivery, vaccines, wound healing etc. According to Dr. Paula Hammond creating highly reproducible batches of precisely engineered coated nanoparticles is important for the safe manufacture of drugs and regulatory approval, specifically in case of cancer therapies. This combination of two technologies shows great promise for the future of nanomanufacturing. Read on...

Nanotechnology Now: Nanoparticles, made to order - inside and out: New research enables high-speed customization of novel nanoparticles for drug delivery and other uses
Author: NA

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 05 aug 2013

Team of researchers from Northumbria University led by Dr. Stuart English, a specialist in design-driven innovation, in collaboration with a private firm have come up with world's first home-based and non-invasive treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy (diabetes related eyesight problems) in the form of a 'Sleep Mask'. The prototype is undergoing clinical trials. The global diabetic population is estimated at 320 million and its growth is considered as epidemic. The Sleep Mask will have a significant impact on the care method of macular eye disease due to its low cost and non-invasive nature. Most available treatments for the disease are very expensive, highly invasive and hospital-based like laser and injections into the eye. Read on...

News-Medical: 'Sleep Mask' prototype: The world's first non-invasive treatment for sight loss
Author: NA

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