Architect Tiziana Proietti and her research partner Sergei Gepshtein joined as faculty members for the 2022 Academy of Neuroscience For Architecture (ANFA) Bootcamp. Proietti is an assistant professor at the Gibbs College of Architecture and director of the Sense|Base Laboratory at OU. Sergei Gepshtein is a scientist and affiliate of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and director of the Center for Spatial Perception & Concrete Experience at the University of Southern California.
ANFA is a nonprofit organization based in San Diego, California that promotes and advances knowledge that links neuroscience research to a growing understanding of human responses to the built environment. This bootcamp, titled “Design, Space, Motion,” was specifically tailored for architecture and design professionals who are interested in advancing their design practices by incorporating neuroscience and cognitive science ideas.
Over the course of three days, this bootcamp provided practical, hands-on lessons for its 52 practitioner-participants. The program focused on how to improve human-centered design by incorporating information about human perception and orienting behavior. This included themes of dimensionality and proportion, motion and navigation, and embodied and enactive experience.
As a research team, Proietti and Gepshtein presented their work on the perceptibility of architectural proportion and introduced an innovative, evidence-based method of vision training for designers. Proietti delivered a lecture, titled “Perceiving Architectural Proportion,” that elaborated on research findings and experiments from OU’s Sense|Base laboratory. Sense|Base is an integrative laboratory housed at the Gibbs College of Architecture, and is directed by Proietti. This lab combines both architecture and neuroscience, with an emphasis on the perception of architectural proportions.
Together with Gepshtein, Proietti created a practicum, “Tools to Study the Human Experience of Space,” where the research related to the perceptibility of architectural proportion was put to the test. Bootcamp participants performed a series of practical exercises using proportional instruments first developed by the Dutch architect Hans van der Laan (1904-1991).
A new session of lectures and practicum will occur at the 2023 workshop in Guadalajara, Mexico from March 27 to April 7, 2023. This program, titled “Moving Boundaries: Human Sciences and the Future of Architecture,” will bring together distinguished international speakers, including scientists, architects, historians, and philosophers. These professionals will highlight the impacts that the built environment has on the health and well-being of humans.
Petya Stefanoff, Chair of the Educational Committee with the American Planning Association, Oklahoma Chapter (APA-OK) and Gibbs College PhD candidate, has developed a new training program for local government officials. The program, focused on land use, zoning principles, and land development, recently certified its first graduates with Certified Citizen Planner status.
Gibbs Construction Science and Architecture students recently traveled to Dublin, Ireland, to compete in the Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) Region 8 Student Competition. The team partnered with Czech Technical University and secured third place in the Design-Build category.
Gibbs College is pleased to present the exhibition Vollendorf in Oklahoma: The Architecture of Dean Bryant Vollendorf during the Spring 2026 semester. It will be on display in Gould Hall, on the OU-Norman Campus, from February 16, 2026 - March 13, 2026.
