THE BRAIN'S ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEM I43

The field of EB studies has developed a user needs paradigm that might
be characterized as follows: Environment-Behavior (E- B) user needs paradigm:
If you study behavrorrattitude, andflpiniQIy to determine how people in differ-
ent organizations and cultures carry out particular tasks and act1ons in relation

Lorheir physical contexf, then physical settings that support tasks and actions
and meet people’s iié‘éaé will contribute to the happiness, productivity, and sta-
bility of their users.

Changeux’s challenge, as well as a great deal of previous E-B theory devel-
opment and research, indicates that this approach solves some problems but not
others. This is demonstrated in this chapter and Chapter 14, both of which
include cases in which employing the E-B paradigm alone leads to faulty design.

Our minds and brains—their development, functioning, and creativity—
are among the few truly renewable resources we have. If designed environments
are to support this resource, we must better understand the brain. The more
E-B researchers and designers grasp how our minds work, the more designers
can improve their ability to program, design, use, manage, and study physical
environments, and design new environments that better support our brains. An
approach to environmental planning that takes into account neuroscience the-
ory and research along with psychological and social science research may
enable environment-behavior to contribute even more effectively to architec—
ture, interior design, landscape design, and planning in the twenty-first century
than it did in the twentieth. Thanks to advances in the neurosciences, an
enriched way to conceive of the relationship between environment and people
is now available. The following E/B/N paradigm adds a neuroscience dimension
to the older paradigm and therefore is more effective for problems related to the
design of environments such as neonatal intensive care units, hospital waiting
and recovery rooms, therapeutic gardens, and housing for people living with
Alzheimer’s—all of which include a brain-related set of design criteria.

Environment/Behavior/Neuroscience (E/B/N) paradigm: If you under-
stand how people’ 5 brains and minds develop and function in different situa-

tions, and how they hammer tlmé to respond to physical environ—
gyms, then environments designed to support these capabilities as well as tasks,
activities, and user needs, will contribute to people’s quality of life, creativity,
and survival.

The E/B/N paradigm and the user-needs paradigm are complementary.
Our understanding of brain capabilities employing a neuroscience approach
reinforces and explains studies of users’ needs, behavior, attitude, and opinion.
The neuroscience E- B paradigm—E/B/N—adds understanding of neurological
and biological function to traditional psychological, sociological, and anthropo-
logical environment- -behavior knowledge. While the user—needs paradigm prima-
rily rests on analytic interpretation of externalized data, the neuroscience para-
digm. rests. on analysis of brain and mind backed up by observed behaviors.
Employing the user-needs paradigm, envrronments m,e\et essential needs; using

how our brains have developed to produce experiences of environmental func-
dons—ultimately to support brain development and functioning while meeting