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Healing Through Spatial Narratives: neuroarchitecture and the experience of grief

Text by Andréa de Paiva, MA

Project by Crisa Santos (@crisasantos.arquitetas ) | Memorial A Presença, Pinhais, Brazil


Healing from grief is a deeply personal and multifaceted journey that varies widely from person to person. The physical environment can play a crucial role in helping individuals navigate their emotions and find ways to cope, which are essential steps in the healing process. The memorial A Presença, located in a cemetery in Greater Curitiba, Pinhais, Brazil, was specifically designed to support this healing journey.


Project by Crisa Santos | Memorial A Presença, Pinhais, Brazil
Project by Crisa Santos | Memorial A Presença, Pinhais, Brazil

A Presença is experienced in two parts. Along the path leading to the memorial, with its organic design, we stroll and encounter figures symbolizing everyday situations, allowing us to build—or revisit—our own narratives through resonance, a “felt-bodily connection between our feelings and our surroundings” (Canepa, 2023). In sequence, the Memorial rises in steel like a great poetic wall, emerging from the earth and carrying a sense of belonging and the continuity of life's journeys. The two parts intertwine presence and absence, offering strong emotional affordances, especially for those experiencing grief. While in one part the figures are present along the path, in the other they are voids, yet they remain present through lines marked on this great wall. Both are complemented by the shadow designs that form on the ground as the sunlight hits.


Each image along the path or wall resonates with our personal narratives, fostering emotional connections to our memories, amplified by the silence and spaciousness of the surroundings. The profound connection with the encompassing nature also supports the healing process, drawing analogies to the cyclic patterns of nature—day and night, seasons, life and death — as well as evoking positive physiological responses, including stress reduction (Ewert, & Chang, 2018), attention restoration (Kimura et al., 2021) , and the potential to facilitate healing itself (Ulrich, 1984).



Detail of the wall: girl watering flowers
Project by Crisa Santos | Memorial A Presença, Pinhais, Brazil
Memorial detail: image of a family
Project by Crisa Santos | Memorial A Presença, Pinhais, Brazil

The multisensory richness of the experience also enhances attention to our bodily and emotional experiences, grounding us in our bodies: the pebble path leading to the memorial and the grass surrounding it contrast with the texture and temperature of the steel wall. This inward focus on bodily sensations helps promote introspection, which plays a crucial role in the grieving process. Introspection involves looking inward to understand one's own emotions, thoughts, and reactions to the loss. Through this process, individuals can gain deeper insights into their grief, facilitating their healing journey.


The swing in one of the voids in the wall affords a more active and embodied experience, providing a diverse opportunity for movement beyond just strolling along the path. It invites visitors to approach the wall and rock, evoking embodied and emotional memories of childhood playfulness and being cradled. Additionally, the wave shape on the top of the wall symbolizes movement and fluidity, connecting with the ideas of transition, impermanence, and evanescence.


The swing in one of the voids in the wall
Project by Crisa Santos | Memorial A Presença, Pinhais, Brazil

Theories and experiments in neuroaesthetics highlight the interaction between the triad of neural sensory-motor, emotion-valuation, and meaning-knowledge systems, all involved with our aesthetic experience of art and spaces (Chatterjee & Vartanian, 2014). The subtle cues in the memorial facilitate this rich interaction, enhancing our aesthetic experience, communicating and enabling connection to emotions that are often difficult to express with words. Art and architecture elicit empathetic responses by engaging our emotional circuitry, reflecting the feelings conveyed in spaces and artwork (Freedberg & Gallese, 2007; Gallese et al, 2015). This experience allows us to access deeper layers of our consciousness and emotional landscape, fostering a profound sense of connection and understanding that transcends verbal communication.


The wall and its voids
Project by Crisa Santos | Memorial A Presença, Pinhais, Brazil

The personal journey of healing from grief encompasses mental, emotional, and bodily processes that can be nurtured by the physical environment. Science-informed architecture provides valuable insights for architects, deepening their intuitions and poetics. This allows them to create spaces that deeply resonate with the unique and profound experiences of each individual navigating the path of healing from grief.



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About the author of the project: CRISA SANTOS


With a solid foundation in architecture, Crisa Santos has been dedicated since her graduation (UNESP - Architecture, Urbanism, and Landscaping) to understanding the creative process with the responsibility of connecting space to its users, in order to offer a new experience during moments of grief. With postgraduate degrees in Administration from Fundação Getúlio Vargas, in Parametric Architecture from Faculdade Belas Artes, and in Neuroscience from PUC and Neuroarchitecture from IPOG, she weaves a network of knowledge to support her projects and grasp the complexity of designing architecture that is both universal and unique.


As an architect and speaker, she is active in the funeral sector, working toward the re-signification of grief, transforming spaces for the bereaved, and creating memorials. She continually studies and enhances her understanding of how the built environment influences the brain, always seeking to place people as the central characters in her work.


Contacts:

Crisasantos.com.br

Instagram: @Crisasantos.arquitetas

+55 11 98283-9853




References:


Arbib, M. A., Canepa, E., Condia, B., De Matteis,F., Griffero, T., Hart, R. L., Hewitt, M.


A., Suchi, R., Wynne, M. (2023) Atmosphere(s) for Architects: Between


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Chatterjee, A., & Vartanian, O. (2014). Neuroaesthetics. Trends in cognitive sciences, 18(7), 370–375. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2014.03.003


Ewert, A., & Chang, Y. (2018). Levels of Nature and Stress Response. Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland), 8(5), 49. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs8050049


Freedberg, D., & Gallese, V. (2007). Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience. Trends in cognitive sciences, 11(5), 197–203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2007.02.003


Gallese, V., Pallasmaa, J., Mallgrave, H., Robinson, S. (2015) Architecture and Empathy. A Tapio Wirkkala-Rut Bryk Design Reader, ISBN: 978-0-692-53919-4


Kimura, T., Yamada, T., Hirokawa, Y., & Shinohara, K. (2021). Brief and Indirect Exposure to Natural Environment Restores the Directed Attention for the Task. Frontiers in psychology, 12, 619347. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.619347


Ulrich, R. S. (1984). View through a window may influence recovery from surgery. Science, 224(4647), 420–421. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.6143402\

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