20 Design Needs Every Brain Shares
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- Attendees - $50
NeoCon Presentation Description: All people (whether neurodivergent, trauma-impacted, or not) require the same fundamental conditions from design to live fulfilling lives. The human brain responds predictably to certain environmental inputs, and when these are thoughtfully addressed, environments consistently support stronger cognitive performance, wellbeing, and satisfaction. This session introduces a set of core neuroscience-based design requirements that shape how people perceive, experience, and perform within interior environments. Drawing from current evidence and applied practice, it highlights examples such as biophilic design, simultaneous sensory integration, to-place bonds, awe, and more. Attendees will gain insight into how environments support autonomy, competence, and long-term positive experience to drive outcomes that exceed expectations for everyone, with additional considerations to further optimize environments for particular groups.
Valerie Jardon, RID, IIDA, NCIDQ, Fitwel Ambassador
Strategy Director
IA Interior Architects
Valerie Jardon, Strategy Director at IA Interior Architects with 18 years of design strategy experience and an Executive MBA, is a respected design industry leader pushing workplace innovation for global corporate clients. With a passion for understanding people to create purposeful spaces, her holistic research extracts emerging needs and propels companies into the future of belonging through an empathetic yet results-driven lens—fusing her design degree and business savvy to unlock the potential of places and people in the workscape.
Sally Augustin, Fellow of the American Psychological Association, PhD
Principal
Design With Science
Sally Augustin, PhD, is a practicing environmental psychologist and a Principal at Design With Science. She has extensive experience integrating neuroscience-based insights to develop recommendations for the design of places, objects, and services that support desired cognitive, emotional, and physical outcomes/experiences. Her client base is worldwide and includes individuals and organizations that produce and/or use design solutions (for example, design firms, manufacturers, service providers, trade organizations, design user groups).
Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the editor of Research Design Connections, a monthly subscription newsletter with daily blog, that reports and synthesizes (in everyday language) the findings of recent and classic research in neuroscience, cognitive science, and the social sciences that are useful to designers.
Dr. Augustin has appeared on mass-market national television and radio programs discussing how to use design to enhance lives. She speaks frequently to audiences in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Sally has been featured in publications such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal as well as the online Harvard Business Review. She is the author of several books: Designology (2019, Mango), Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009), and The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012; Cindy Coleman, co-author).
Sally Augustin earned a PhD in psychology at Claremont Graduate University, an MBA at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Business (majors in finance, marketing, and management information systems), and a bachelor’s degree at Wellesley College (majors in economics and American studies).
