For more than half a century, contemporary design has

maintained an ethos of ‘form follows function’. As we

ascend into an era of deeper understanding of the inter-

connection between body and mind through scientific

research, we are beginning to recognize the profound

effect of art, design and architecture on us – from the

embracing shape of an armchair to an open office flood-

ed in natural light. It begs the question: should we be

giving more thought to ‘form follows feeling’?

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Susan Magsamen is a long-time collaborator and friend of

Muuto, the executive director of the International Arts +

Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University and co-director of the

NeuroArts Blueprint. Her research centers on the human ex-

perience of aesthetics – a field adequately dubbed neuroaes-

thetics – examining the impact of architecture, art and design

on our behavior and sense of wellbeing. Catching up with

Susan, we spoke of design’s potential for producing wellbeing,

the importance of expressing an authentic self in the places

we work and live in, and how we can combine neuroaesthetic

elements or universal truths about light, form and tactility

to create more poignant spaces that truly make us flow.

susan

— There's a lot of work right now

in thinking about things like flourishing or

thriving – really being your authentic self.

Even though we all have the same biology,

my conditioning, my experiences, my genet-

ics, make me respond to arts and aesthetic

experiences differently, says Susan.

On the importance of self-expression

As we grow up, we are learning to better

understand what we need. You might re-

call decorating your room with an over-

whelming sense of urgency – a need to re-

arrange, to transform. In these early ways,

we are projecting our identity through our

spaces, developing a sense of what we like

and what we need around us to thrive.

susan

— There really isn’t such a

thing as good or bad taste – there is only

self-expression. You cannot say, my es-

sence is better than your essence. It is

what it is, and we need to honor that. We

will explore ourselves for the rest of our

lives. We are such intricate beings, and

to allow that into the spaces that we are

in holds so much potential. What we like

changes and as you change, every space

you inhabit somehow changes.

Universally appealing neuroaesthetic

ingredients

While conditioning makes us gravitate to-

wards particular objects and spaces which

we experience in vastly different ways,

research, like that of Anjan Chatterjee

of University of Pennsylvania and Oshin

Vartanian at University of Toronto, has

demonstrated that there are more univer-

sal neuroaesthetic principles we can ad-

here to when forging holistic experiences