[00:00:00] Intro: The Healing Power of Human Connection

[00:00:00] Meredith Banasiak: We know in healing and hospital environments that having someone in the room can help with pain reduction and stress reduction. If that person is holding your hand, the stress reduction and pain risk reduction is even n better. The more connection down to just literal physical connection the more powerful the healing response.

[00:00:24] Introducing Meredith Banasiak

[00:00:24] Sola Da Silva: Welcome to third space. And that's my guest, Meredith Banasiak She's a researcher and producer.

[00:00:32] Sola Da Silva: And in this episode, Meredith and I talk about how architecture can benefit from the latest research in neuroscience and how we can design our spaces to improve health and wellbeing. Meredith has an impressive bio. She works at the interface of research and practice as director of research for science at Boulder associates, she conducts real-world research with clients and design teams to support data-driven, science informed design for improving health and performance in built environments. Meredith serves in the academy of neuroscience for architectural board of directors. She's also featured in the 2020 documentary built beautiful, an architecture and neuroscience love story narrated by Martha Stewart. She's published in psychology, clinical and design research journals and books. Her current passion is producing science plus design a YouTube micro-learning series. I am so excited and I feel truly honored to have her on the show.

[00:01:36] Hi friends. I am your host. Sola DaSilva. I am an architect and storyteller. And third space is where we have meaningful conversations about architecture and wellbeing. Giving you the tools to design a life that works for you. I'm passionate about creating a world that is inclusive and full of beautiful spaces that truly reflect our humanity and inspire us to be our best selves. I'm so happy that you're listening. Let's get into it.

[00:02:14] maybe I've been in a bubble, but I feel like this is not out there as much as it should be. And I'm just so. Excited, you know, to see this new kind of, perspective to architecture and to design like people really talking about emotional well being and designing for human beings as we are, meeting our emotional needs, psychological needs, our needs for connection and I feel very inspired and I'm really excited to talk with you

[00:02:48] Meredith Banasiak: that's awesome. But I'm just as inspired by you. So I mean, I feel honored as well. So thank you.

[00:02:56] Sola Da Silva: You're very welcome.

[00:02:58] Understanding Social Isolation and Loneliness

[00:02:58] Sola Da Silva: Loneliness has now been labeled a public health crisis by the US surgeon general. It impacts about half of us adults and an increasing number of young adults between ages 15 and 24 are reporting, feeling isolated. How does social isolation and loneliness impact brain function?

[00:03:19] Meredith Banasiak: yeah, so really good question.

[00:03:21] The Science of Enriched Environments

[00:03:21] Meredith Banasiak: and I'm going to frame it a little bit in terms of the research on what we call enriched environments. Going back even 100 years ago, scientist Donald Hubb brought home some lab rats for his kids to play with, and then when he brought him back to the lab, he found that these rats were These ones that were pets outperformed their siblings who were genetically similar on all the cognitive behavioral tasks, right?

[00:03:49] So fast forward to the 1990s, there was this research done where they were moving rats from, what they called standard housing. and that might've meant just a cage with bedding. sometimes it was just like a plastic bin without bedding. I've even seen like a Home Depot bucket, to what they called enriched environment. In the enriched environment. There were four key attributes. There was novelty and complexity, like toys and hidden treats. there was, opportunity for exercise, maybe a wheel. Oh, the multisensory stimulation. Sometimes that one gets included. Sometimes it doesn't. And then there were playmates.

[00:04:29] So they were no longer socially isolated. And so those four key components became what qualifies an enriched environment. And so after they moved the rats from standard housing to enriched environments, they found not only were they performing better on, mazes and stuff like that, but they were actually growing more neurons in parts of the brain associated with learning and navigation, and we're making more connections between their neurons.

[00:05:01] So there's been lots of data. of subsequent studies which have isolated those factors, exercise studies, novelty and exploration studies, and certainly, the role of companions , and playmates. all of those things contribute to health. But the whole is bigger than the parts.

[00:05:23] So they're compounded effect is really what, as an enriched environment really makes a difference.

[00:05:30] Designing for Social Integration

[00:05:30] Meredith Banasiak: Designing for social integration or not having social isolation is a big piece of what makes an enriched environment and what gives us that stimulation for health.

[00:05:41] So that's like just baseline early studies from neuroscience of what's good. Good for us.

[00:05:49] Sola Da Silva: An important distinction to make is the difference between social isolation and loneliness. So loneliness is a very subjective experience and it's the experience of feeling disconnected from others. And so a person might be surrounded by friends and family, but still feel lonely. While social isolation is more objective. It's having actually having very few social interactions, roles, and relationships in society and we saw this play out during the pandemic, it was sort of amplified.

[00:06:21] Meredith Banasiak: so I feel like COVID helped us as a society understand the negative impact that social isolation can have on our health because we experienced it firsthand. but they're, they're research. And now I'm talking about not just animal models, but human studies on isolation and the negative, health impacts, not just psychological, but neurological, damage that isolation can do. The evidence is pretty overwhelming. A lot of it comes from studies on solitary confinement and with prisoners in solitary confinement. Depth perception are affected. Uh, learning. I believe, , the ability to cope with fear. lifespan is shortened. So all of these impacts are so profound that organizations like the United Nations and even our professional organization, the American Institute of Architects have condemned and outlawed designing for a solitary confinement. Thank you. It's really that bad. So in that context, we're talking about deprived environments, which is by definition, lacking enriched environment features, and that includes the social isolation, that comes with it. I think one of the reasons we're not going to Mars because we could, but one of the reasons we're not is because of social isolation. We haven't figured out how to overcome that, in order to get astronauts and accrue safely to Mars. Without having that long term negative effects from social isolation. So those are to maybe, extreme examples, but we see deprived environments in our communities. , nursing homes. Neighborhoods that are play deprived. and don't have, , there's no upper opportunities for that social connection, and so it does affect lots of places. And certainly back to your original question about covid, that more people experienced it. And so we had a first person understanding of the negative impacts that it has.

[00:08:34] Sola Da Silva: Can you talk a little bit about what an enriched environment looks like?

[00:08:41] Meredith Banasiak: Sure. So yes, novelty. That kind of newness. Our brain wants to explore and engage, right? there's a lot of Theory that suggests that's why nature is so good for us is because it's changing.

[00:08:55] Whether it's across seasons, flowers are blooming or across the day, the sun is setting different shadows are everything's dynamic. It's changing. Even, the famous Roger Ulrich study where the view from a window can support recovery and reduced length of stay in the hospital, that was a view of trees versus a brick wall.

[00:09:20] And was it just that the trees were blowing in the wind? Certainly with nature, you get that dynamism and novelty. Sometimes it's easier to think of deprived spaces. It's easier to give examples of those bad spaces than it is to give, examples of enriched environments.

[00:09:39] Certainly in a lot of our deprived environments, there's no windows to a view where you see any kind of change, everything is very static. And then again, with the social connection, even in cases wherethey're working with astronauts on ISS and stuff like that. They're not totally isolated. they have each other. But there's no diversity of experience, and so they would try to do movie nights. And that was like interesting the first couple times. And then they were just like,we're pattern making machines. So I'm going to predict what this person's going to think about the movie.

[00:10:13] So I don't, why even have the conversation, So yeah, novelty is a big piece of, again, why, all of those things work together.

[00:10:22] Sola Da Silva: I'm really fascinated by your career path and I truly appreciate the opportunity to interview you because you bring such a unique perspective to this conversation. Now having decades of experience in architecture, archeology, and neuroscience, three completely different disciplines, I'm curious, how do these fields of study inform your work as a researcher and designer?

[00:10:46] Meredith Banasiak: I think that the commonality is just understanding the connections between people and place. So, you know, with archaeology, we're looking at ruins of places or artifacts that are found in places to try to understand the people who created them, the cultures who created them, what were their values like, what were their behaviors like?

[00:11:09] And architecture, In the best case, is trying to understand the people and cultures and behaviors that the spaces need to support and design for those. So to me, it's the same sort of equation, just solving for different variables. There's a Kurt Lewin who's a was a social scientist said behavior is a function of the person in the environment.

[00:11:34] Which also became popularizedin the movie Star Wars, when they said, may the force be with you, may your force field be supportive to your own strengths and that's your environment and the other people that are surrounding you. Right. So, you know, that's something that always resonated with me has been that commonality between all my studies. The way we talk about it in the firm is that our projects are ecosystems of people, place and process. So process might be behaviors that you're trying to support, so in workplace, it might be focus versus collaboration or in health care, when you think of surgical processes, they're pretty rigidlyplanned out there. But that's the connection for me between archaeology and research and architecture.

[00:12:25] Sola Da Silva: I think we're so fortunate to be alive at this time in history with so much technology and information accessible to us.

[00:12:33] The Role of Technology in Design

[00:12:33] Sola Da Silva: I know you've done research on consumer wearables as a tool for tracking wellbeing and using that information to make informed design decisions. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

[00:12:45] Meredith Banasiak: cool things came to mind as you were talking if we can go back for just a second about COVID And I can say, I remember doing Observations for work in an ICU unit and the covid patients had, first of all, they had no windows because they had to put on special new mechanical units for the mechanical ventilation to accommodate that infectious disease.

[00:13:12] the window was blocked with this temporary mechanical unit. They had no window. No one could go into that room. And when the staff had to go in, they suited up in it literally would look like a beekeeper kind of outfit. Like they completely suited up and then they were in there as little as possible.

[00:13:33] So it's no wonder that those patients. had a harder time recovering. Because we know in healing and hospital environments that the power having someone in the room can help with pain reduction and stress reduction.

[00:13:51] If that person is holding your hand, the stress reduction and pain risk reduction is even n better. If the person holding your hand is a family member or a loved one or someone you care about, or a spouse, it's even more profound, right? So the more connection down to just literal physical connection the more powerful the healing response.

[00:14:16] And if we take that the opposite way, so right now you and I connecting on zoom, or if I see a face on TV 60 percent of my mirror neurons are activated. Versus if we were in person, 100 percent of them would be and mirror neurons are there's some controversy there a little bit, but people say they're responsible for imitation.

[00:14:42] So that helps with empathy, because if I imitate what you're doing, I understand what it feels like when I'm doing it. Some scientists believe that it's associated with empathy. I am feeling connection with you, but if we were in the same space, it would be that much more greater.

[00:14:59] So you can really just see the spectrum of impact with connection.

[00:15:05] Then you asked about technology. I'm going to go back to a healthcare example. We can use tech, in order to decrease. pain. So during painful procedures I'm thinking pediatric vaccinations or even pediatric surgical procedures where they they might not have anesthesia.

[00:15:26] The more consuming tech you can give them, the less they're going to feel the pain. So in that instance Tech can be really good. And I, I've heard like Tetris is like the ultimate in terms of consuming all of your attention. Which I totally believe because I'm a huge Tetris fan. And when I'm playing Tetris and someone's trying to have a conversation, like it's no good.

[00:15:52] You're a Tetris fan, too?

[00:15:53] Sola Da Silva: Absolutely. Absolutely. Right from the Game Boy days. Um, yeah.

[00:16:00] Empowering Design Through Wearables

[00:16:00] Meredith Banasiak: So one of my big picture goals is to democratize knowledge and democratize tools so that as designers we were not trained as scientists and we can't just sit there and wait for the knowledge to be handed down.

[00:16:17] Our jobs will go away. Consumer wearables are designed for the consumer for anyone to use. So I think they're the perfect tools for designers to also make use of and help make the invisible visible. So for example, I got my toys here, like this, my CO2 meter I would never know CO2 levels, before, two years ago, I, Never even thought CO2 levels was like a thing and that would affect my health or cognition or potential to get COVID, all of those things.

[00:16:50] I also have on a stress ring today. That measures my sweat, which is a surrogate for nervous system activity and stress. And by stress I just mean arousal. My arousal levels could go up if, I were in, break room, having a really cool conversation with a friend, that would be good activation. But they might also go up if I have four zoom meetings in a row and I'm stressed out. So, arousal doesn't have a negative or positive connotation. Stress has the negative connotation because we are too much off homeostasis, right? We don't have the balance. We're too much in the hyper aroused stage and don't have enough of the relaxation.

[00:17:39] If there were a situation where someone was always relaxed, that wouldn't be healthy either. That person would probably be depressed or might have some other kind of cognitive impairment. So you just need to keep that in balance and having those stimulating break room conversations or activities that do increase your arousal are good too.

[00:18:01] I also have my light meter. I can pin it on my shirt and it monitors my lighting exposures, both lighting intensity and then lighting spectrum. So obviously we've heard about the blue light at night is bad that sort of thing.

[00:18:16] Meredith Banasiak: So all of these things help make atmospheric elements that were, again, invisible to me, definitely not on my radar five years ago, visible and that awareness changes my behavior, right? If I know how much I'm walking on my watch, I'm going to try to walk more and get my steps in.

[00:18:37] As a designer, if I know the spaces that I've been designing are chronically dim and my light meter says the space makes you sleepy, maybe I can do something about that, right? So I think it's just the awareness that changes the behavior. And so these wearables become tools That we can use as designers.

[00:18:57] All of these collect actual data too, which is what we do on the research side of things is collect kind of big data on these environments. And then Dissect that so that we're designing better lighting environments over 24 hours and dynamic light. Or the stress studies are interesting because we've been able to identify different activities that make people more stressed out or different spaces that seem to make people stressed out. Having the extra layer of data that helps connect the human occupants with what's happening in the space so we can get better alignment or homeostasis.

[00:19:39] Sola Da Silva: Everything that you've mentioned is bringing to mind the word empowerment. Because the more you know about what's happening to you and your body, the more you can make decisions about your space. And I think that's just so powerful.

[00:19:58] Meredith Banasiak: Yeah. I love that you brought up empowerment. Because a lot of times, again, going back to healthcare, we try to design for patient control over their own space. And I think it's because There is no one size fits all. There is no sort of best practice ideal if I follow this prescription, it's gonna, heal everyone magically. And that's because of individual differences. And just think, Age, like what I could see and hear 10 years ago is different than what I can see and hear now. That's just one tiny example, but, age and ability and culture. So there's lots of individual differences of how people can cope with the environment where the environment either becomes too overwhelming and they can't cope with it, or there's not enough stimulation going back to the deprived environment and so they're not challenged enough.

[00:21:01] So individual differences and then also the activity you need to do. Am I writing a paper? Am I trying to connect with someone socially? Those are going to be different kind of environmental conditions that would support those two different things, even though the person hasn't changed.

[00:21:19] So I think understanding how we can make our spaces more adaptable or offer more control or empowerment is really important.

[00:21:31] Sola Da Silva: While architects want buildings to be statically pleasing. They also need it to be safe. And sometimes we find that aesthetics comes after functionality or efficiency in the order of priorities.

[00:21:47] Human-Centered Design and Social Connection

[00:21:47] Sola Da Silva: And to return for a second to the issue of social isolation. We now know that social isolation is not an individual problem. It's a systemic problem and a such, it requires a collective solution. Social connection is shaped by social infrastructure, including physical spaces in our communities. And so different stakeholders, including architects need to collaborate and come up with great solutions. But architecture as a field is risk averse, particularly healthcare design. So the question becomes, how can design play a role in this effort? What are some practical steps an architect can take right now to design more holistically?

[00:22:33] Meredith Banasiak: Oh, gosh, great question. I think of wayfinding as an example because you have people with so many different ranges of ability, maybe they are literate, maybe they're not, maybe they don't speak the language the sign is written in.

[00:22:49] Maybe they have different sensory challenges like low vision or if it's a phone that you're trying to navigate, maybe they just don't have that ability, so even within wayfinding, there's such a range of people's needs. And so what, back to your question, what can designers do? I think we can design in redundancy. Be redundant and that will allow a bigger bubble, that kind of Goldilocks zone bubble that more people can fit in instead of what in universal design they call the mythical average, which is who we're used to designing for, male, adult, white person. And that's a very narrow window. How do we make the window bigger to accommodate more people? And I think it's whatever your aim is to be redundant across senses, across ability, across language, across whatever the task at hand is to design in those redundancies.

[00:23:52] When we do research in practice, they usually bring me in at the beginning of the projecteven before a schematic design. And it's to understand occupants, understand future scenarios too. So We'll come up with three or four, like a best case scenario or worst case scenario. What if we have another pandemic? And we kind of like stress test the design once we get to schematic design. Is it going to work in this scenario or how well is it going to work?

[00:24:20] And co creating like I can't emphasize this enough. It's not just about scientific evidence, that's just only a piece of it. First person experience is just as much, if not more important as evidence and you need both. And you need the people with the experience to be at the table.

[00:24:40] I like to use the word continuous occupancy evaluation instead of post occupancy evaluation because it recognizes the dynamism of our ecosystems.

[00:24:53] One of our clients is eating recovery center. So they treat persons with eating disorders. And what they have shared is that since the pandemic, the complexity of persons with eating disorders they've just become more complex and more acute. Therefore their care delivery has to change. So what Eating Recovery Center has agreed to is to do, an occupancy evaluation once every three to five years across all of their portfolio buildings. They have somewhere like 35 buildings or something like that. You know, why is this building performing so much better than the other ones? Why is this condition worse than the other ones? And then as we continue to design for them we have that data to create environments that are most current for the evolving population.

[00:25:45] Sola Da Silva: what does human centered design mean to you?

[00:25:48] Meredith Banasiak: I think it, for me, it's about designing our places to be most supportive of our health, well being and performance. I would include social connection as part of like performance and in some cases.

[00:26:04] We know that the spaces we design can heal, or they can harm. We know that, and we have to take responsibility to do no harm. And so person centered design or human centered design is understanding what is going to be helpful versus harmful, and just doing that.

[00:26:25] Concluding Thoughts and Reflections

[00:26:25] Sola Da Silva: Meredith, thank you so much for trusting me with your time and energy. To wrap up, this is a question I ask all of my guests. What is your third place?

[00:26:35] Meredith Banasiak: Yeah, perfect question. So the community for sure is, people like you, is making this relationship with people like you who share a passion for person centered design for making better health and well being through design.

[00:26:53] And what I found is like we all share experiences that have affected who we are today profoundly because the space either impacted us in negative ways or positive ways or both. I'm certainly, I can speak to both for sure but we share that common connection and that passion. And so The community is very valuable and I am so grateful for you creating this community through this podcast.

[00:27:22] The third space is when we actually get to come together in person. And this does happen from time to time at conferences and when the conference venue kind of walks the talk where they have beautiful spaces that, highlight nature or create connection, Have healthy food, all of those things that the conference venue does to support the community and the things we stand for those are my favorite third spaces.

[00:27:52] Sola Da Silva: Yeah.

[00:27:53] Meredith Banasiak: So I really look forward to when you and I be in that third space together. 

[00:27:58] Sola Da Silva: Thank you for listening to this episode of Third Space. Thank you to my amazing guest, Meredith Benasiak. Be sure to like, subscribe, and share. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Send me emails, DMs. Adios, friends. Until next time.