ArcSci

Bringing evidence-informed design into the spaces that shape people’s lives

Every day, architects, designers, engineers, developers, organizations, and authorities make decisions that shape how people live, work, learn, heal, and connect in built environments. As urbanization accelerates and people spend more of their lives within and around buildings and designed spaces, one question becomes increasingly difficult to ignore:

How do we create spaces that genuinely support the people who use them?

For decades, buildings and cities have balanced aesthetics, performance, cost, sustainability, regulations, and countless competing priorities — but how people actually experience spaces is a vital dimension much harder to understand and measure. 

At the Center for Environmental Neuroscience (CEN), we study how everyday environments shape human brain, behavior, and mental health. As part of our research platform, we investigate which characteristics of buildings and places shape the way people think, feel, behave and perform, contributing to the burgeoning field of architectural neuroscience. Much of this knowledge, however, remains within academia and rarely reaches the professionals responsible for creating buildings, neighborhoods, and cities. Instead, many decisions continue to rely on precedent, assumptions, or intuition, with limited evidence about how people perceive and experience the spaces being created.

ArcSci was created to bridge this gap.

Supported by the MAX!mize program, we are founding ArcSci, a scientific consultancy that brings expertise in neuroscience, psychology, and architecture to help organizations answer questions that traditional metrics cannot. We believe that the future of the built environment should be shaped not only by what is possible to build, but also by what helps people thrive.

We ask: How will patients respond to this particular healthcare environment? Does this workplace support focus or encourage distraction? How do different layouts influence user behavior, interaction, or stress levels? Using scientific methods from behavioral research and psychological assessments to neurophysiological measurements and immersive technologies, we explore these questions within the context of individual projects and translate the findings into practical recommendations.

Our mission is to make evidence about human experience a standard part of decision-making in the built environment. We believe that buildings and spaces should be designed not only to be technically sound, aesthetically compelling, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable, but also to support the health, wellbeing, and everyday experience of the people they are created for.

In this initial phase, we are building partnerships with organizations interested in exploring how scientific evidence can inform their existing and planned built environments. If this aligns with your work or you would like to learn more about ArcSci, write us an email at ARCSCI@mpib-berlin.mpg.de