Pantheon of Wonder

Essay

Abstraction of Colorful Light

Can Environments Nurture Higher Emotional Intelligence?

by Maria Lorena Lehman

Architectural Design

Architecture Drawing

Inspiring New Kinds of Care

What is the role of environments as we progress into the 21st century? Of course, they still provide places for living, working, learning, healing, and playing – but the way in which environments will nurture these activities is changing as we evolve into the future. In particular, the convergence of responsive design with multi-sensory design can bring about a new kind of nurturing, where building occupants learn and grow within environments.

Being more than simply about meeting needs, architectural places will also guide, teach, and inspire in new ways. For example, a hospital can not only help a patient to heal with improved quality more quickly, but the architecture can also help the medical team to fine-tune their emotional intelligence – particularly during high stress situations. What if a hospital could inspire new, more creative compassionate healthcare? In this way, the environment would create personalized space to help the medical team, the patient’s family/visitors, and even the patient, themselves, to nurture their feelings and behaviors toward even more creative compassionate healing.

The Role of Context

With multi-sensory design, it is important to study context when orchestrating the stimuli of an environments into a design. For example, a certain sound or color may trigger anxiety in a hospital, while sparking excitement or energy in another setting. By factoring for the context of an occupant’s situation or experience, a design can be better “tuned” to help occupants gain emotional intelligence about their situation and what steps to take next. This will help them to make better decisions that, in turn, help them to reach their short or longer term goals.

As you design your architectural concepts, be sure to think more than about how your building occupants would react. Take your design vision further. When formulating your concept, think of how your building can help your occupant to become smarter – not just intellectually, but emotionally as well. This will help their ability to perform at those optimal levels in a multitude of situations.

‍Image Credit: © 27707 | Pixabay

RETURN TO JOURNAL
NEXT ARTICLE

Your invitation:


Dear reader,


I believe life is a continual process of awakening. As the journey of my own life continues, I always find myself connecting my experiences, studies, and ideas to new creative projects that bring beauty, inspiration, and hope for our world. For over 30 years, since starting at age 17, I have immersed myself in architectural design; and early on, I earned a Master of Design with Distinction from Harvard University, setting the foundation for decades of deep immersion in the field. Yet even before this, I held music close to my heart. At the age of 5, I began my first piano lessons; and since then, I began to see the world through a musical lens — even while designing architecture.


Over the decades, I grew closer and closer to music with a deep love for the design of instruments, their unique timbres, and for all the immersive ways their sounds could be interwoven into beautiful orchestrated compositions. I even began to develop a musical composition methodology, Spatial Symphonics, as I found my architectural design work becoming more and more emotive, soul-stirring, and yes: musical.


In recent years, I finally turned my focus to music composition. I hold a Graduate Diploma from the Film Scoring Academy of Europe where my works have been recorded by the acclaimed European Recording Orchestra (ERO), and I am founder of MLL ATELIER® — an award-winning studio now dedicated to my work as an orchestral composer, recording artist, and spatial symphonist — where I advance architectural design through music, and innovate music through an architectural design lens.


It is my hope that I can share my ongoing musical-design journey with you, directly from my studio through my video-newsletter entitled 'Orchestral Notes'. Expect video updates filled with first-access studio news announcing: album/book releases, concert premiers, sheet music publications, creative process sneak-peeks, and my own compositional philosophies as they develop to fuel my ongoing body of musical and architectural authorial works.


I would love for you to join me for this exciting adventure.


Simply click the button below to join my Orchestral Notes video-newsletter delivered every two weeks directly to your email inbox. Plus, get access to the full publication archives.

JOIN THE ORCHESTRAL NOTES NEWSLETTER

Let’s enjoy the beauty, inspiration, and hope that music brings.


Thank you for joining me on this wondrous journey.


Warmly,

Maria Lorena Lehman


Founder of MLL ATELIER® | Orchestral Notes

Your invitation:


Dear reader,


I believe life is a continual process of awakening. As the journey of my own life continues, I always find myself connecting my experiences, studies, and ideas to new creative projects that bring beauty, inspiration, and hope for our world. For over 30 years, since starting at age 17, I have immersed myself in architectural design; and early on, I earned a Master of Design with Distinction from Harvard University, setting the foundation for decades of deep immersion in the field. Yet even before this, I held music close to my heart. At the age of 5, I began my first piano lessons; and since then, I began to see the world through a musical lens — even while designing architecture.


Over the decades, I grew closer and closer to music with a deep love for the design of instruments, their unique timbres, and for all the immersive ways their sounds could be interwoven into beautiful orchestrated compositions. I even began to develop a musical composition methodology, Spatial Symphonics, as I found my architectural design work becoming more and more emotive, soul-stirring, and yes: musical.


In recent years, I finally turned my focus to music composition. I hold a Graduate Diploma from the Film Scoring Academy of Europe where my works have been recorded by the acclaimed European Recording Orchestra (ERO), and I am founder of MLL ATELIER® — an award-winning studio now dedicated to my work as an orchestral composer, recording artist, and spatial symphonist — where I advance architectural design through music, and innovate music through an architectural design lens.


It is my hope that I can share my ongoing musical-design journey with you, directly from my studio through my video-newsletter entitled 'Orchestral Notes'. Expect video updates filled with first-access studio news announcing: album/book releases, concert premiers, sheet music publications, creative process sneak-peeks, and my own compositional philosophies as they develop to fuel my ongoing body of musical and architectural authorial works.


I would love for you to join me for this exciting adventure.


Simply click the button below to join my Orchestral Notes video-newsletter delivered every two weeks directly to your email inbox. Plus, get access to the full publication archives.

JOIN ORCHESTRAL NOTES

Limited availability each month.


Warmly,

Maria Lorena Lehman


Founder of MLL ATELIER

Author of PANTHEON OF WONDER

Maria Lorena Lehman has received the following awards and has been seen in the following publications: