EDRA 46, Los Angeles, CA, US
Theme: Brain STORM: Dynamic Interactions of Environment-Behavior and Neuroscience
May, 2015
【Pre-conference Workshop: Landscape & Human Health】
EDRA is an important academic international conference in the landscape architecture field. The theme of the annual conference that year was to discuss the issues associate to environments and behavior from the neuroscience aspect. The workshop was host by Dr. William Sullivan from “Sustainability & Human Health Lab”, UIUC and Dr. Chun-Yen Chang from “Healthy Landscape & Healthy People”, NTU. The core concept of the workshop was about the health benefit of landscapes. Firstly, Dr. Chang gave an overall idea of the relationships among the main elements in the core concept, for example environmental landscape elements, ecological structures, and physiological and psychological health indicators. After the discussion of the whole picture of the research in landscape architecture regarding to human health, followed up with some research works which the two groups have done. Included research about the green infrastructure and the cover ratio of street trees in built environments, how these influence human health? On the other hand, the interdisciplinary research about neuroscience and landscape architecture is a new trend. In the workshop we discussed the literature review about the relationship between brain activity and environments, and the current work and temporary results of the research of Dr. Chang’s group, the brain activation of landscape design. Participants were students, scholars, and landscape designers, through the workshop discussion session, professors led dialogue between participants and presenters, and we hoped pushing the research and design in landscape architecture field to a greater level.
CELA 2016, Salt Lake City, UT, US
Theme: Dilemma: debate
March, 2016
【Workshop: Landscape & Human Health】
In the 2016 Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture Annual Conference, professors and graduate students from “Sustainability & Human Health Lab” and “Healthy Landscape & Healthy People” held a pre-conference workshop session. In the workshop we discussed the relationship between ecological healthy environments and human health, and the locations ranged from urban areas to leisure farms in rural areas. The research discussed in the workshop were examined the attention restoration and stress reduction for psychological health indicators. Examined electroencephalogram (EEG) and brain activity with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) for physiological indicators. We discussed the influence of different types of the landscapes, the questions we asked, does the participants’ brain response differently while viewing images of different landscape types? With these health indicators, we could discussed the impact of natural and built environments on human health. Furthermore, the Sustainability & Human Health Lab used GPS to observe the route of daily communication between school and home, and analyzed types of environments that participants involved in during the route. This research revealed the relationship between living environments and health datum. The last session was discussion of the presenters and the participants, which started with introduction, people asking and answering the questions, and gave advice on the research and related case studies.
CELA/CLAEC 2017, Beijing, China
Theme: Bridge
May, 2017
【Pre-conference Workshop: Landscape & Human Health】
The conference this year was held by CELA and Chinese Steering Committee of Landscape Architecture Education in Beijing. The theme of the pre-conference workshop hosted by the Sustainability & Human Health Lab and Healthy Landscape & Healthy People Lab focused on the health influence of ecological healthy landscapes. During the workshop, researcher shared the concepts, research structure, results, and discussed the research method, how to measure the beneficial effects of landscapes. For example, how is the relationship between environments, emotions and brain activity while doing landscape design? How does the farm environments and horticultural activity impact physiological health? How does the Qi environments, air quality, and the labor environments impact the human health? The topics raised interest and discussion between participants, which was our aim to spread the concept and remind the public concerning of the environments where we live.