Online training course
Neuroscience & Architecture:
designing with the user in mind
Science-Informed Architecture for a Changing World
A global-level training bridging neuroscience, cognition, and architectural practice designed for architects, designers, planners, and anyone committed to shaping healthier, human-centered environments.
Learn, practice, and participate in real case studies.
Transform scientific knowledge into a portfolio-ready project and accelerate your career in neuroarchitecture.
Starting in April 2026
If you have any questions please contact us at info@neuroau.com
What Makes This Course Unique
A science-informed program that blends rigorous research with real design application.
1. Scientific Rigor
This training is rooted in peer-reviewed research from neuroscience, cognitive science, and environmental psychology.
You learn not only what the science says, but how each concept translates into real, systemic implications for architectural and urban design.
2. Design Application
Theory becomes practice.
You work with practical, science-informed tools and structured exercises that help you integrate scientific evidence into spatial strategies, design decisions, and project narratives.
3. Global Perspective
The training includes examples and case studies from Europe, Latin America, and Asia, complemented by bonus lectures from international experts.
You also explore real applications inspired by NENPS, NeuroAU’s social-impact initiatives.
4. Portfolio & Real-World Project
Beyond understanding the science, you apply it.
Throughout the training, you develop a science-informed design proposal, a portfolio-ready project that demonstrates your ability to apply evidence-based tools in practice.
A strong foundation whether you aim to advance your career, pursue research, or differentiate your work in the market.
5. A Human-Centered, Science-Informed Approach
At the core of this training is the belief that architecture shapes behavior, cognition, and well-being.
You learn how to design with the user in mind and an holistic approach, creating environments that support mental health, attention, stress regulation, sensory experience, and long-term cognitive resilience.
Goals of this training
What you will be able to understand, apply, and communicate after completing the program.
1. Learn a science-informed and human-centered approach to spatial design
Understand how to design with scientific evidence in mind, using concepts from neuroscience, cognition, and environmental psychology to support human well-being in the built environment.
2. Understand how environments shape users at cognitive, emotional, and behavioral levels
Gain deeper insight into how architecture influences attention, stress, perception, memory, and the overall human experience.
3. Build a structured understanding of relevant scientific evidence
Develop a solid foundation of research-based knowledge that you can rely on in your projects, academic work, or consulting practice.
4. Apply science-informed and human-centered thinking in real design contexts
Translate scientific insights into spatial strategies and design decisions, preparing you to stand out in the profession by creating healthier, human-centered environments that foster well-being in both the short and long term.
5. Strengthen your professional profile with portfolio-ready work
Develop a science-informed design proposal during the training, enhancing your portfolio and demonstrating your ability to integrate evidence-based principles into practice.
BENEFITS
9 live masterclasses meetings in which attendees are able to interact and get their questions answered immediately
1-year access to all course materials
Exercise application with 3 exclusive meetings to get feedback and discuss NeuroArchitecture application
Access to exclusive Telegram group with participants coming from all over the world and forming a unique community
Recordings of all the meetings allow attendees to watch them whenever is best for them, regardless of timezones
Digital certificate
Digital handout with more than 300 references
Professor involved with national and international research, teaching and consultancy
Who This Training Is For
Designed for professionals, students, and researchers who want to bring scientific depth and human-centered thinking into architecture and spatial design.
Architects and Interior Designers
Professionals seeking to integrate scientific evidence into their design process and create environments that support well-being.
Urban Planners and Landscape Designers
Those interested in understanding how multisensory experiences, affordances, and environmental conditions shape human behavior and cognition at the urban scale.
Researchers, Academics, and Students
Master’s and PhD students, as well as university professors, looking to deepen their knowledge of neuroarchitecture.
Design Professionals from Related Fields
Lighting designers, product designers, UX spatial specialists, experience designers, and anyone working at the intersection of people, environment, and behavior.
Professionals Transitioning or Expanding Their Expertise
Those who want to build a strong foundation in science-informed design, enhance their portfolio, and differentiate themselves in a competitive global market.
Anyone Curious About the Relationship Between Space and the Human Mind
A broad invitation for learners who want to understand how architecture shapes stress, attention, perception, memory, and overall well-being.
Program Overview
A clear, science-informed learning journey combining theory, experience, and practical application.
MODULE 1 — Foundations of Science-Informed and Systemic Neuroarchitecture
You establish the scientific and systemic foundations of neuroarchitecture, understanding how neuroscience, environmental psychology, and design intersect. You learn how to apply a science-informed mindset to design decisions, distinguish research from trends, and position evidence within real architectural and urban workflows.
MODULE 2 — Designing for the Whole Body: Movement, Embodiment & Active Environments
You understand how movement, posture, stress regulation, and embodied cognition shape health and behavior. You learn practical strategies to design environments that foster physical activity, spatial navigation, and active use of space, from buildings to cities.
MODULE 3 — Designing Experiences: Spatial Narratives, Behavior & the Lived Context
You explore how order, sequence, rhythm, and context shape experience and behavior over time. You learn how to design spatial narratives, translate everyday journeys into experiential strategies, and shape coherent spatial sequences that guide perception and action.
MODULE 4 — Synchronizing Through Design: Integrative Lighting and Biological Rhythms
You understand how light, darkness, and natural cycles regulate biological rhythms, hormones, and well-being. You learn how to apply circadian science to architectural and urban lighting strategies across different typologies and contexts.
MODULE 5 — Designing for Our Essence: Nature, Biophilia & Psychoevolutionary Foundations of Design
You understand why humans need nature from an evolutionary and neurophysiological perspective. You learn how to translate biophilia, stress reduction, and attention restoration into concrete design strategies for buildings, interiors, and urban spaces.
MODULE 6 — Designing for the Senses: Multisensory Balance & Embodied Perception
You understand how vision, sound, touch, smell, balance, and interoception shape embodied perception and emotion. You learn how to design environments with multisensory coherence and balance, avoiding both sensory deprivation and chaotic overload.
MODULE 7 — Neurophenomenology of Perception: The Lived Experience of Space
You explore perception as a subjective, predictive, and embodied process shaped by memory, agency and attention. You learn how to translate this understanding into user-centered analytical tools, personas, and experiential design strategies.
MODULE 8 — Memory, Meaning & Place Attachment: Affective and Collective Dimensions of Space
You understand how memory, culture, symbols, and affect create emotional bonds with places. You learn how to apply place attachment, place-making, collective memory, empathy, and meaning-making to design strategies, briefing processes, and placemaking decisions.
MODULE 9 — Designing Enriched Systems: Translating Research into Practice
You integrate all course concepts into a systemic design logic grounded in enrichment, brain plasticity, and cognitive resilience. You learn how to translate scientific evidence into long-term, real-world architectural and urban strategies that support health, well-being, and sustainability.
Live Q&A Sessions
Deepen your understanding through discussions that bridge concepts across modules and support the development of your project.
Live bonus lectures with international guests
Throughout the training, you will also have access to bonus lectures delivered by invited experts from around the world.
What You Will Learn
By the end of this training, you will have learned to:
1. Understand the Brain–Environment Relationship
→ How the nervous system processes space, light, nature, movement, and multisensory stimuli
→ Stress physiology: acute vs. chronic responses
→ Embodied cognition, perception, attention, and memory
→ How environmental factors influence well-being, behavior, and long-term neuroplasticity and brain resilience
2. Identify Human Environmental Needs for Cognitive Well-Being and Resilience
→ The environmental conditions humans rely on to thrive
→ How unmet needs contribute to stress, overload, discomfort, and detachment
→ What enriched environments are, and how they support brain plasticity, cognitive reserve, and long-term mental health
→ How to address human environmental needs through evidence-based spatial design strategies
3. Analyze Space Through a Cognitive and User-Centered Lens
→ How people perceive, interpret, and emotionally respond to environments
→ The role of order, narratives, spatial storytelling, and sequences
→ Sensory design: vision, sound, smell, touch, and multisensory integration
→ How personal, cultural, and contextual factors shape the way different users experience the same space
4. Design Through a Science-Informed, Human-Centered Lens
→ Design for movement, rhythm, cycles, restoration, and embodied interaction
→ Integrative lighting: nature cycles, circadian rhythm, natural vs. artificial light
→ Biophilic and nature-based design strategies
→ How to translate scientific insights into spatial concepts and design decisions
5. Explore Evidences and Apply Them to Real Contexts
→ How to read and interpret scientific studies with a critical lens
→ Differences between environmental psychology, neuroscience, and neuroarchitecture
→ How to use research findings to support design narratives and briefing strategies
→ How to identify stressors, affordances, and opportunities for well-being in real spaces
6. Explore Design Across Scales: Body, Building & City
→ Embodiment, posture, movement, and spatial affordances
→ Building typologies and environmental impact on behavior
→ Urban environments, navigation, wayfinding, density, connection, and isolation
→ Designing enriched systems that support individuals, communities, and planetary health
7. Strengthen Your Creative and Analytical Practice
→ Mapping, storytelling, sense-making, and journey-based design
→ How memory, culture, rituals, and place attachment influence design
→ Understanding prediction, bias, comparison, and emotional resonance in space
→ Creating spatial narratives with purpose and behavioral impact
8. Develop a Science-Informed Project for Your Portfolio
Across the training you will work on a design exercise that helps you:
→ analyze a space using scientific and human-centered criteria
→ translate evidence into design intentions
→ propose strategies for stress reduction, cognitive support, comfort, and well-being
→ build a portfolio-ready outcome grounded in research
9. Learn Through Live Discussions & Q&A
Throughout the program, Q&A sessions deepen your understanding of:
→ applying science to your own context
→ interpreting studies
→ connecting complex concepts with design practice
→ refining your project through feedback
NEUROAU & COURSE DIRECTOR
Science-informed education with global reach and real-world impact.
This training is led by Andréa de Paiva, architect, researcher, and founder of NeuroAU (Neuroarchitecture & Urbanism) — a pioneering platform dedicated to education, research, and applied practice in neuroarchitecture since 2018.
NeuroAU has trained and certified students in more than 45 countries and is internationally recognized for bridging neuroscience, environmental psychology, and design practice through a systemic, evidence-based perspective.
Andréa de Paiva is:
→ Advisory Council Member and Vice-Chair of ANFA Chapter Brazil
→ Author of an upcoming chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Neuroscience and the Built Environment (2025)
→ An international lecturer and educator with 15+ years of experience in neuroscience applied to architecture and urban design
→ Collaborator in research and academic projects with institutions in Europe, Asia (NTU Singapore), and Latin America
→ Through NeuroAU, she also coordinates applied social and community-based projects (NENPS), ensuring that scientific knowledge is continuously tested and translated into real-world contexts.
This course reflects the same philosophy that guides NeuroAU’s work:
rigor without dogma, science with application, and design as a systemic tool for cognitive health and well-being.
INVESTMENT
An investment in your scientific foundation, professional positioning, and long-term career impact.
Your investment reflects not only access to content, but also to a methodological framework, applied learning, and a global network.
Tuition Options
Full Program Fee: € 780
(taxes may apply depending on your country of residence)
Early-Bird Fee (limited time): € 600
(taxes may apply depending on your country of residence)
What Your Investment Includes
→ Full access to all 9 live training modules (Zoom)
→ Access to live Q&A sessions (Zoom)
→ Bonus live lectures with international guests
→ Access to all class recordings for a 1 year period
→ List of reading materials and scientific references
→ Participation in the applied design exercise
→ Certificate of completion issued by NeuroAU
→ Access to the international NeuroAU alumni network through Telegram
Why This Is an Investment, Not Just a Course
This training provides:
→ Scientific literacy in neuroscience applied to the built environment
→ A systemic framework for design decision-making
→ Portfolio-ready applied learning
→ International academic and professional recognition
→ Long-term differentiation in the global design market
2026 EDITION CALENDAR
Subject to changes
TESTIMONIES
Christine, United Kingdom
Designer
Tahra, Dubai (United Arab Emirates)
Architect & Designer
Emilia, France
Master student in Architecture
Fernanda, Mexico
Architect & Designer
Lúcia, São Paulo
Architect and urbanist
In a captivating, collaborative and thought-provoking way, Andrea, through her courses, articles, lectures and classes, makes us reflect and awaken to a more human and assertive look in the way of designing where, through the application of neuroscience concepts in architecture, we can transform environments to transform people.. Very grateful for sharing so much!
Eduardo, São Paulo
Academic professor
The course "Neuroscience and Architecture: From Design to User Experience" is for those who want to learn the main concepts surrounding this fascinating topic. The content is dense, has a great theoretical load based on scientific evidence, but due to the didactics and knowledge of Professor Andrea, who generously transmits her knowledge, it becomes an understandable course, even for those who have no experience in it. Our architecture is aging and we need to return to more human concepts in order to develop more assertive projects, aimed at the different actors who will use the built environment. Knowing human biology will be a competitive advantage for the professional in these new times. I highly recommend the course!
Noele, Fortaleza dos Valos
Architect
This Neuro AU course taught by Andrea de Paiva is spectacular! Architects interested in the subject will only find clarity here. Because we are not neuroscientists and we need a general translation of the subject so that we can remain interested. Andrea has mastered the subject, teaches the course with discipline, a lot of content and a simplicity in communication that leaves neuroscience in our hands and on the tip of our tongue. She is brilliant and delivers a lot on the course.
Jaqueline, Osasco
Psychologist and psychoanalyst
[...] I am a psychologist, and I have ventured to listen and learn from professionals who are not in the psi area, about their perspective on the subject. I confess: I was surprised! What an amazing course! Even though I am a psychologist, and I already have prior knowledge of neuroscience, being able to see the applicability in architecture and urbanism was simply sensational. It's a very different perspective and it warmed my heart and brightened my eyes. Therefore, the whole course pleased me: from the themes of the classes, the workload, the teaching of the teacher, the theoretical references used, and the most diverse examples that were shared by Andrea to illustrate the application of these concepts in the execution of projects. Besides all that, the class I was part of was great! Very participative and active professionals in the area. It was an intense and rich exchange of knowledge that I will use in my work (both as a psychologist and as the person responsible for a space for subletting rooms) and also in my personal life. I recommend and always recommend this course! Thanks.
Aline, Salvador
Architect and urbanist
The course is excellent! Andrea is very delicate, patient, has a lot of knowledge and excellent teaching skills, characteristics that make her an excellent teacher. Congratulations!
Juliana, São José do Rio Preto
Architect
During 2020, I tried to update myself with the courses in the area of Health that I have been working on for over 10 years (Hospital Architecture) and among so many lives I watched Andrea talking about Neuroscience applied to Architecture, Urbanism, Interior Design; she accepted my invitation to a live and it was fantastic to discover the world of "NeuroArquitetura" popularly spread in Brazil. So I got a place, in fact disputed, for her second online course and it was a differential for my research and to prepare me better both for my master's degree and for the market in which I work. I recommend the courses, the NEUROAU website, the researches and the congresses she participates in and she is always helping us with her knowledge that she shares with great affection, I see passion in what she does and I appreciate her support as always. Kisses and success.
FAQ
→ I’m still a student. Can I take the training?
Yes. Our groups are always mixed — from undergraduate students to senior professionals. The program is designed to be accessible regardless of your level of experience.
→ I’m not an architect or designer. Is the training still for me?
Absolutely. While many participants come from architecture, design, and planning, we also welcome professionals from psychology, health, education, human sciences, public policy, and anyone interested in how environments shape the brain, behavior, and well-being.
→ Will I receive a certificate?
Yes. All participants who complete the program receive a digital certificate issued by NeuroAU.
→ Are the live classes recorded?
Yes. All live sessions are recorded and made available for one year, so you can revisit the content or catch up according to your schedule and timezone.
→ Is the training taught in English?
Yes. The entire program — live lectures, Q&A sessions, and recordings — is conducted in English.
→ Do I need previous knowledge of neuroscience?
No. The program begins with accessible foundations and progressively builds complexity. You will learn how to read, interpret, and apply scientific evidence — even if you have never studied neuroscience before.
→ Will I be able to apply this to my own projects?
Yes. The course includes applied exercises and Q&A sessions where you can bring your own project, context, or question and receive guidance on how to translate science into design strategies.
→ What is the expected weekly workload?
Most participants dedicate an average of 2–4 hours per week, depending on their pace. Since live classes take place every other Saturday and all recordings remain available for one year, you can learn at your own rhythm.
→ What if I can’t attend the live sessions?
No problem. All live classes and Q&A sessions are recorded and made available for on-demand access. Attendance is not monitored, as we trust in the ethical commitment and genuine interest of participants in their own learning process. You are free to follow the program entirely through the recordings, according to your availability.
→ Is there a community or networking component?
Yes. You’ll join an international Telegram community where participants exchange ideas, ask questions, collaborate, and connect with professionals from different countries and backgrounds.
→ How long do I have access to the course materials?
You have 1-year access to all recordings, handouts, references, and downloadable materials.
→ Can this training count as continuing education or academic credits?
While NeuroAU does not issue academic credits, many institutions accept our certificate as proof of continuing education. This depends on local rules and requirements.
→ What makes this training different from other NeuroArchitecture courses?
The program is led by Andréa de Paiva, one of the leading international voices in neuroarchitecture, and integrates science, practice, and real-world application.
This is not a “trendy” overview, it is a rigorous, science-informed training designed to elevate your practice and thinking.
→ Is the training fully online?
Yes. The entire program is delivered live online and accessible from anywhere in the world.
→ Do I keep the certificate if I only watch the recordings?
Yes. We understand that participants join from many countries and time zones, and flexibility is essential. You may complete the entire program through recordings if needed.
We trust that participants choose this program for the depth of learning, not just for a certificate. The certificate is a formal recognition of your journey; its value comes from the knowledge, skills, and scientific literacy you gain.