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Future of XYZ is a bi-weekly interview series that explores big questions about where we are as a world and where we’re going. Through candid conversations with international experts, visionary leaders and courageous changemakers- we provoke new thinking about what's coming down the pipeline on matters related to art & design, science & innovation, culture & creativity.
Future of XYZ is presented by iF Design, a respected member of the international design community and host of the prestigious iF DESIGN AWARD since 1953. The show is also a proud member of the SURROUND Podcast Network. For more information, visit ifdesign.com/XYZ.
00:00:04:00 - 00:00:14:16
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Future of XYZ. With us today is architect designer Suchi Reddy. Suchi, thanks so much for joining us.
00:00:14:18 - 00:00:22:04
Speaker 2
I'm so happy to be here. Lisa, it's always fun to chat with you, so I can't wait to see what we're going to discover about the future today.
00:00:22:06 - 00:00:44:19
Speaker 1
I can't either, actually, and this topic is super cool. And as we were talking about super geeky, you are the founder of a design studio based in New York City called Reddymade, which you founded in 2002. You are an architect by training and were recently inducted or elevated, I should say, to the College of Fellows at the AIA, the American Institute of Architects.
00:00:44:19 - 00:00:46:11
Speaker 1
So congratulations on that.
00:00:46:12 - 00:00:57:11
Speaker 2
Thank you so much. It's it's really such an honor. You know, only 3% of registered architects actually get to say that. And and I'm actually very proud of this, so it's good.
00:00:57:12 - 00:01:01:17
Speaker 1
You should be. And as a as a woman, as a young, young woman, too.
00:01:01:17 - 00:01:05:16
Speaker 2
So not so young. But let's.
00:01:05:18 - 00:01:19:24
Speaker 1
Pretty, pretty young for FAIA. But you teach at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. And I believe that you have a artist in residence at Colgate University in upstate New York. Yes.
00:01:19:24 - 00:01:26:13
Speaker 2
Which I just completed, in fact, with that just culminated in an installation that's called Bias and belonging.
00:01:26:15 - 00:01:55:23
Speaker 1
Through a very interesting well, maybe we'll have a chance to talk about it. You serve on a bunch of different boards, including Madam Architect, and you're based in New York City, as so many of our guests are. But you were raised in India and I think germane to today's conversation before we dive into it, is, you know, perhaps one of your most interesting claims to fame, which is, of course, your your role in the world as a leading figure in the field of neuroaesthetics.
00:01:56:02 - 00:02:16:00
Speaker 1
And you've spoken about this at Aspen ideas and CityLab and various other places. And we're going to talk about the future of neuroaesthetics today. So with no further ado, I always ask the first question based on your expertise, how do we define neuroaesthetics?
00:02:16:02 - 00:02:48:03
Speaker 2
Neuroaesthetics is a translational field that involves the work of a whole host of disciplines and academics and practitioners from around the world. That includes neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, psychologists, architects, artists, all coming together to understand the effect of experience and art and design experiences on the brain and the body. In other words, what does your world do to your brain about it?
00:02:48:05 - 00:02:50:00
Speaker 2
How are you reacting to it?
00:02:50:02 - 00:02:54:20
Speaker 1
I mean, pretty much it's everything. It's like how are we stimulated by the world around us.
00:02:55:01 - 00:03:28:03
Speaker 2
Yes. Small goal to start. But you know, such a timely thing in design, you know, because, I mean, certainly being at iF, right, you know, that it's all about innovation and it's all about understanding how we can use the knowledge of our time to really improve our craft and our work. And I would say like, you know, the bauhaus like affected design for a hundred years because they were looking at the technology of their time and our technology in our time.
00:03:28:05 - 00:03:42:18
Speaker 2
Neuroscience is one of those fields that's made like giant leaps in the last 50 years. So to bring that together with esthetics, art, architecture, a geek like me could not be happier.
00:03:42:20 - 00:04:09:01
Speaker 1
I love it. And that's a super helpful context for for the next 20 minutes of our conversation. I mean, your work generally is known to push the boundaries of architecture's role, I would say, in shaping what you call a more empathetic, equitable and enriching built environment. What in practice does this actually look like and how do Neuroprosthetics kind of intersect?
00:04:09:03 - 00:04:49:21
Speaker 2
So, you know, it's that's such an interesting way of phrasing the question. Thank you. I always joke and say, We've got everything happening in the office from a four inch round object to a campus plan and the idea and the principles that are uncovered through the study of neuroaesthetics actually guide the design of all of them. So if I'm looking at like we did a small object for a spirits company that was meant to enhance the the experience of experiencing one of the having one of those spirits, and I created a beautiful stone dish that looked like the color of the liquid.
00:04:50:01 - 00:05:18:00
Speaker 2
I created an incense that actually worked with the smell. And so you did both while you drank. And it was to bring to mind this Proustian effect, right, of jogging memories through scent, through smell, through experience, through taste of bringing all of the senses together. So that same thread actually from that four inch thing, we go into residential design, you know, where we're looking at kinds of spaces and experiences within a residence very carefully.
00:05:18:00 - 00:05:45:03
Speaker 2
And here we get to think about one generally one user, one group of users, right? So we know them pretty well. We get to have pretty close conversations as to what makes them feel comfortable, what makes them feel included, what makes them feel creative. And depending on what the person needs, the spaces are both architecturally and from a design perspective or modulated based on the ideas of color or proportion texture of stimulus.
00:05:45:03 - 00:06:02:15
Speaker 2
Like how much stimulus do you need in a space? How little? Maybe you need some quiet space that's contrasted by a really small kind of, you know, diorama. You know, if you're a creative person and you're writing and you need to go off into another world, but come back, you know, what are the cues that allow you to do the kinds of things you do?
00:06:02:21 - 00:06:33:09
Speaker 2
If we're looking at a retail space and we're looking at bringing a brand to life, then it's really looking at what's the ethos of that brand? How are we amplifying that brand? Like when we did Google's first retail store over in Chelsea in New York, you know, it was a software giant, had never been physical. So to bring them into the world, but also bring that sense of play and adventure and work with an existing space and dematerialize the screen, make it a space where you exhale, where it's warm.
00:06:33:11 - 00:06:50:18
Speaker 2
It's not white and shiny, you know, it's not aspirational. It's really a place where you can go to discover that was important. Finding out that sense of awe, wonder, and discovery that that honestly is at the base of technology. It’s why we like technology, you know, we discover something. So to go to that principle and then discover that through design.
00:06:50:20 - 00:07:05:23
Speaker 2
So that's how we translate it through a lot of different lenses and a lot of different scales. But all the time bringing the talents of the team together with what the design brief offers.
00:07:05:24 - 00:07:33:01
Speaker 1
You've been known in your architectural and design work broadly. As you say, you speak about this object for the beverage company, which I believe I remember being in your studio. I think it's a whiskey brand that was describing, which I remember well. It's so cool. And there's this idea that, you know, form follows feeling, and I think a lot of people would actually think the opposite that you feel based on the form.
00:07:33:03 - 00:07:36:01
Speaker 1
Can you talk about that interplay a little bit?
00:07:36:03 - 00:07:52:08
Speaker 2
That is also such an interesting way to ask that question. So, you know, as an architect, you you grow up right? You're inculcated with this idea of the form follows function. And of course form follows function form has to follow function. Otherwise it doesn't need to exist right in a certain way.
00:07:52:10 - 00:07:53:10
Speaker 1
Ideally.
00:07:53:16 - 00:08:18:02
Speaker 2
Ideally. But what we what I realized about, I would say a decade or so into my practice, which is now two almost coming up on two and a half decades, was that what I really cared about was designing towards feeling. So I wanted form to follow feeling, you know, like for instance, we did a collectible furniture line. You might ask, why is an architect doing a furniture line?
00:08:18:02 - 00:08:47:07
Speaker 2
But, you know, that's not so unusual. And this was a collaboration with a centuries old weaving house in India, and it was about bringing the sari to life on the world stage and really creating the series of forms that are all one form that are all about wrapping the body. So when you look at it, you feel the kind of fluidity and the softness, right, of how you feel when you're wrapped in a sari.
00:08:47:09 - 00:09:17:17
Speaker 2
So that's the idea to really sort of bring these things together always. But for me on a larger scale, it's also about looking at how we design our world, because for me, we really design a world outward from the body. Like that's the place where I'm interested, you know, And I really call this like the democratic space of the body, the language that we all understand, regardless of socioeconomic differences or race or caste or whatever, everything comes back to here.
00:09:17:19 - 00:09:32:05
Speaker 2
And from here we build our worlds. So we build our clothing is our first home, our homes, then our cities, then our towns. Then it goes that way. And I think the through line has to be how do we feel in these spaces?
00:09:32:07 - 00:10:16:17
Speaker 1
It's interesting because you've done a lot of advocacy work in addition to research, design and teaching education and whatnot about neuroaesthetics, but generally design and really this profound impact that design has on human perception and in your words, well-being. Yes. I'm curious how, a you came to this realization and if the field of neuroaesthetics is one really the term, not just the field, because obviously neuroscience and all the rest of it is there, but like is neuroaesthetics something that you named or is this a field that like exists more broadly, how did you come to this.
00:10:16:21 - 00:10:38:01
Speaker 2
The term was actually created by Semir Zeki from the University College of London and you can look that up. It's been around for a long time. The field itself is, I would say, about 25 years old, so a little bit older than my practice. But and yes, now, you know, people say neuroarts and they say neuroarchitecture, and honestly, I don't know what all of those things mean.
00:10:38:01 - 00:11:08:07
Speaker 2
I do know that esthetics in general is something that we can fall under. You know, the specializations and under that I'm not an expert expert on necessarily, but what I would say is it's really funny. I go back to my childhood and my upbringing so often when these questions come up, you know, because I happen to be lucky enough to grow up in a house in India that was actually designed by an architect that and he had a giant Japanese influence to his work.
00:11:08:07 - 00:11:31:00
Speaker 2
He was the only architect who had bonsai trees. You know, and the house had such a profound effect on me as a child. I remember having an epiphany and I must have been around ten. And I remember like the temperature and where I was standing in the house and I was like, my house is making me different than my friends because my house is different than my friend's house, you know, And it wasn't sort of better or worse or anything.
00:11:31:00 - 00:11:56:03
Speaker 2
I just recognized my environment as a as a protagonist in the person that I was becoming. Right. And that actually drove me to become an architect, to really understand the power of space, you know, And you see it all the time, like we know how to design prisons to make people feel bad. We're not looking at the rest of the world from that lens.
00:11:56:03 - 00:12:03:08
Speaker 2
We're not looking at how do we make people feel great. We're looking at, okay, how do we build this for a, you know, how much square footage can we get and how much.
00:12:03:11 - 00:12:05:04
Speaker 1
Money ultimately usually.
00:12:05:09 - 00:12:31:02
Speaker 2
Which we have to look at, No question. But all of that has to be directed. I think, and underpinned by this idea of how are we using all of those constraints to actually do something that makes people feel better. And that's what I mean by wellbeing. It's not necessarily so much like, you know, you go into a spa and you can relax like temporarily and then you come out, you know, No, and the rest of the world has to be that continuation, that right, that makes you feel like it was designed for you.
00:12:31:08 - 00:12:34:12
Speaker 2
It was designed for you to do a better thing.
00:12:34:14 - 00:12:51:04
Speaker 1
It's really interesting. I want to talk about some of the projects and kind of how you see those get this this field evolving, your practice, evolving, your clients and users, as you said, like in a residential, it might be one small group of users, but in public spaces and cultural institutions, all of which you've worked on, it's bigger.
00:12:51:06 - 00:13:14:08
Speaker 1
I want to talk about something that I think is really interesting, which was in 2019, in Milan, you worked with Google again. Muto the furniture brand and the International Arts and Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University Brain Science Institute. To do this, a space for being installation, which you can talk about by demonstrating how environments elicit measurable psych.
00:13:14:10 - 00:13:27:11
Speaker 1
I guess physiological response is not psychological responses. How did it what did you learn from this experience and how has that perhaps shaped kind of your practice and thinking about neuroaesthetics going forward?
00:13:27:15 - 00:13:46:02
Speaker 2
Well, I learned so much from this experience, and I will say that this is you know, this is how it's actually drawn from the way science is done in elaborate, except that in a lab you have to do something many, many times. And in order to get a similar result and have controls which real life doesn't offer you.
00:13:46:04 - 00:14:12:10
Speaker 2
So you have constantly changing parameters, people coming in affected by whoever they just ran into, you know, So and that's affecting their physiology. So, you know, this is the thing is that we tend to think our physiology is separate from our psychology and our biology. But it isn't, you know, it's all of those things and those things change all the time and they change based on the inputs. And space is an input, in my opinion.
00:14:12:12 - 00:14:34:02
Speaker 2
And that's what I really learned from that. I learned that the ability to also really be able to show people that design was not just a subjective notion, You know, it's not just this makes me feel good. You know, you want to ask the question why?
00:14:34:04 - 00:14:54:03
Speaker 1
If it's so interesting to me, because I'm someone I really resonate with, that idea that, like the house you grow up in, it makes you a little different. You know how you see things, how you experience. And I joke all the time like I'm a triple Libra and one of the horoscopes and one of the things about Libra. It does, right.
00:14:54:03 - 00:15:25:07
Speaker 1
I'm a little afraid of what it explains. But one of the one of the main things about Libra is their attention and appreciation for beauty. And I am hypersensitive to not just beauty, you know, which I think is what you're talking about, like how people expect spaces to be designed. But like, if I walk into a space that has, like energy that doesn't feel good and I feel stagnant, you know, airflow that feels stagnant, colors that are abrasive textures, but especially lighting, right?
00:15:25:07 - 00:16:07:10
Speaker 1
It's so important. And it's interesting because even even I as we came into this conversation, Suchi, was like, let's see where this conversation goes because that's Future of XYZ every episode. But I'm so fascinated because I would never have used that expression neuroaesthetics, but it's exactly that. It’s the physiological response that I have when in an environment and I'll call it beauty, but that doesn't resonate, that doesn't put me at ease, that puts me a little bit and I might be more sensitive than many, but it's exactly that it actually impedes my ability to relax, to be myself, etc..
00:16:07:10 - 00:16:27:01
Speaker 1
So you've done a fair amount of research on this across residential and commercial and public installations like what are some of the favorite projects that you had and do you feel like you're seeing more interest in kind of designing for this neuroaesthetics response?
00:16:28:08 - 00:16:29:06
Speaker 1
I absolutely, you know,
00:16:29:08 - 00:16:51:19
Speaker 2
I see a lot more interest. You know, it's not something that a lot of people come to. First of all, it's a big word. Let's just face it, you know? But what it is, is your physiological reaction to being in space. You know, so when people say immersive, I don't get it anymore. I'm like, I don't understand. Life is immersive, the world is immersive.
00:16:51:19 - 00:17:09:12
Speaker 2
I don't tell you unless I just have a whole bunch of TV screens. I'm calling that immersive. I don't know. You know, that's that's my brain. That's not everything, right? So I do feel like the importance of it always resonates with people. When I talk to people about it, they're like, yeah, for sure, I get it.
00:17:09:14 - 00:17:29:08
Speaker 2
And particularly after the pandemic or during the pandemic, people really understood what the value of the space, the quality of the space they were in, what the value of that was to them. Right? How did it make them feel? Because you were stuck in it and you were kind of like, What do I do now? You know, how is this making me feel?
00:17:29:10 - 00:17:51:13
Speaker 2
And people ask the question because also we had so many other things where the feels were really up in the world, right? So you were really tuned in. You weren't thinking about like all the stuff about how to get to work and how to do this but but at it's very simplest level. It's what you were saying. It's like removing the friction that keeps you from enjoying a space and being present fully in a space.
00:17:51:15 - 00:18:10:21
Speaker 2
So and we do that a lot every day as we walk out our doors, right? We're like, you got to, you know, be alert. You have to, you know, and you have to do all of those things and all the systems in your body and your brain are kicking in in order to do that. So that is a neuroaesthetic aspect of a let's call it an urban street that exists, right?
00:18:10:21 - 00:18:42:04
Speaker 2
You go down towards somewhere and you're walking across a blank facade and your cortisol levels rise and they rise because there's not enough interest in that facade. There's not enough psychological safety that is showing you. So this is the kind of research that I look at, I draw from that informs the kinds of things that we do. You know, So in every project we're looking at that we're bringing, it might not be everything that the the most common question I get is like, what's neuroaesthetic about this?
00:18:42:04 - 00:18:56:19
Speaker 2
And like, I don't know the fact that you're in your body and you're feeling it all, you know, or what are the ten things I can do to make this neuroaesthetic, you know, which is also a difficult question to answer because it's not always the same ten things.
00:18:56:21 - 00:19:00:09
Speaker 1
Right? Because if you ask ten different people, you're going to get ten different things.
00:19:00:11 - 00:19:24:02
Speaker 2
Exactly. So you really do have to rely on your own skill and intuition and your experience as a designer to be able to synthesize all of this information that's out there, you know, and inform it just like you would if you were, you know, a stockbroker and you're looking at the numbers for the day or you're looking at data or you're a geographer and you're understanding some new information that came up in on the satellites.
00:19:24:02 - 00:19:33:09
Speaker 2
Right. You look at it to shape your view and you look at it to shape your work. It's the same technique that you have to use. One has to use, I would say.
00:19:33:15 - 00:19:58:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, no, it's super. It's so interesting. And you talk about bodies of research. I mean, that exists everywhere. But any time you're hired to do a project is, you know, whether it be a residence or a commercial interior or whatever it's going to be, you have to take these kind of users into consideration. I'm curious about some of the work you've done in health care, because obviously, you know, I think you've done some work, especially for children.
00:19:58:00 - 00:20:19:05
Speaker 1
And, you know, if you think about the the song like The Children Are Our Future and we're Future of XYZ, like how do you think that designing a health care space that, you know, benefits our children when they're in a very vulnerable situation in a medical environment? How do you think that might help them develop into the future?
00:20:19:07 - 00:20:47:19
Speaker 2
Well, I mean, there's so many questions within that question. Actually, my very early work before I even thought about neuroaesthetics was designing the interiors of a montessori school and really thinking about, you know, both from the ethos of that kind of teaching of children and their growth, but to see what could actually animate and come this. And another real factor that has come up is that more and more people identify as neurodiverse so children identify as neurodiverse.
00:20:47:19 - 00:20:51:16
Speaker 2
There are a lot of especially with kids now, we're sensitized to kind of see it and understand it.
00:20:51:16 - 00:20:55:09
Speaker 1
Which is ADHD, autism spectrum, etc..
00:20:55:13 - 00:21:11:21
Speaker 2
All of those things. So to understand how design and particularly from a neuroaesthetic lens can actually work with all of those things is something I'm terribly interested in and want to carry forward, whether it's in pilot schools or charter schools or, you know, whichever form it comes up with. But the project that you were referring to was a product.
00:21:11:22 - 00:21:35:11
Speaker 2
It was a design for a prototypical hospital room, and it was for kids who had been suffering from what's called disorders of consciousness. So that could be comas, that could be other neurological disorders. But mostly they're on their back. Right. And so one of the features that came up from studying the work around it was really that the stress of the child affects the stress of the caregiver.
00:21:35:11 - 00:21:55:03
Speaker 2
And likewise, you know, and usually there's nowhere to escape. Like the child might be watching the same cartoon a hundred times and it might drive the caregiver crazy. You don't want that to happen because their stress then affects the the relationship, you know, of the child to their recovery. So you really want to be able to look at all of this kind of information.
00:21:55:03 - 00:22:12:18
Speaker 2
I was looking at information about time clocks and body cells and how do I show the passage of time in the space, even if you didn't have a window, you know, Do you use VR to do that? Do you use audio video to do that? Because then your body tunes in a different way to the passage of time, You know, your cells can reset.
00:22:12:18 - 00:22:44:04
Speaker 2
So it was very experimental and this is, you know, honestly, because we're not a giant firm known for health care, it's it's quite a difficult place to implement something. But I've been so lucky to be on the forefront of like being able to think about these things. And so we're constantly working with firms to see how to actually put these into practice, because the one thing I will say is what we need is more research and we need more longitudinal data like this.
00:22:44:09 - 00:22:46:23
Speaker 2
This is young, young information.
00:22:47:02 - 00:22:56:11
Speaker 1
Yeah, No, it's really fascinating. And yes, appreciate like health care is a complex and multifaceted area of practice.
00:22:56:13 - 00:23:00:22
Speaker 2
Particularly with liability. You know, it gets very well most things do these days, but.
00:23:01:03 - 00:23:02:09
Speaker 1
Especially in America.
00:23:02:11 - 00:23:03:14
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:23:03:16 - 00:23:07:12
Speaker 1
We have global listeners. They might be like, what? Liability? What’s that?
00:23:07:14 - 00:23:10:18
Speaker 2
Let's just try to do the best thing for everyone. Isn’t that normal?
00:23:10:20 - 00:23:31:11
Speaker 1
Crazy. Crazy. Before we move on to our final question, Suchi, you have done a number of public installations, civic art, cultural spaces, where you use neuroaesthetic principles to evoke connection, wonder and empowerment. What does the future of this look like and what role is going to play?
00:23:31:13 - 00:23:55:03
Speaker 2
I think there's you'll just see I think it's evident that there's a hugely increasing role in terms of larger formats of art that people can actually engage with physically. You know, So I've done things like an institution, an installation, I should say, at the Smithsonian, where I asked people to give me one word for their future. They speak into my sculpture.
00:23:55:03 - 00:24:15:20
Speaker 2
I used AI and ML to kind of read that emotion in their voices and reflect that back to them. And I really saw that as they kept repeating words, even though they got these kinds of strident patterns, they got softer and they got more beautiful. You know, this idea that beauty actually affects people. You know, this is like my small ways of doing research, right?
00:24:15:21 - 00:24:37:03
Speaker 2
Like, this is what I see from my work, from doing it. And I can can carry that forward and try that in a different iteration and see what happens. And I keep laddering up all of the info that I'm getting from that. So that kind of thing. I also did an installation at the National Building Museum that was meant to be people of all in DC.
00:24:37:03 - 00:24:53:15
Speaker 2
Yeah, and I don't know if you know the museum, but it's like the biggest interior space in DC. You make you feel tiny in it, you know? So the whole idea was to build this kind of circular oval ramp that lifted you up. So you actually felt like the proportions corrected themselves. You felt like you belonged in that.
00:24:53:17 - 00:24:57:10
Speaker 1
I read an article about that years ago. When was it? That was a while ago now.
00:24:57:11 - 00:24:59:05
Speaker 2
It was three years ago, I want to say.
00:24:59:05 - 00:25:02:01
Speaker 1
Yeah, I remember reading an article. I didn't know you did that. Cool.
00:25:02:05 - 00:25:20:08
Speaker 2
Yeah. And you know, there were these giant. Of course, all my childish things come to play in my work where I made these giant kaleidoscopes and these giant kind of fortune teller things. And inside these fortune tellers, I had, like, visions and images of civil rights marches, the histories of the place. So as you were walking, you could see yourself be reflected in time.
00:25:20:10 - 00:25:42:17
Speaker 2
So you could also position yourself. And I also really from that particular instance where I actually thought a lot about neuroaesthetics, I would challenge people to take the same picture twice and they couldn't because experiencing space is all about where your body is, right? And with these kinds of shiny things that sort of slightly move, you know, people would like, no one won the prize.
00:25:42:17 - 00:26:03:22
Speaker 2
Let's just say that, you know, But they had a lot of fun trying. You know, creating those kinds of things and now culminating in what I just finished at Colgate, which is called bias and belonging, is still on view until June 2nd and my first digital textile. So I printed a textile on a digital loom, which I'm super excited about.
00:26:04:02 - 00:26:23:19
Speaker 1
Lots of friends are doing this right now, it seems like. Yeah, I mean, Jamie Deringer, who was the founder of Design Milk is doing some of this work and there's a woman from IDEO who was at our trend conference last year. Seems like this is really like I mean, it's only the smartest of you, I think. And it seems to be largely women, but really fascinating.
00:26:23:22 - 00:26:42:08
Speaker 2
So I was so excited and I went into the community and I asked them questions about where they felt bias and where they felt belonging. Also, because these are always space based feelings and often they would be the same place, whether it was church or family or the dinner table or, you know, and we made icons for these and then we projected them on
00:26:42:08 - 00:26:52:12
Speaker 2
the wall. It was so moving honestly, people were so moved to see their own work. Words and feelings be represented in the work, you know, which is really how I like to make work.
00:26:52:14 - 00:26:53:14
Speaker 1
It sounds that way.
00:26:53:16 - 00:26:58:07
Speaker 2
And I'm able to use it to talk to people. That's enough.
00:26:58:09 - 00:27:14:20
Speaker 1
So final two questions, Suchi, are always the same for every episode of Future of XYZ. For viewers and listeners who want to learn more about neuroaesthetics, is there an iconic reference or an example of design that you would point them to?
00:27:14:22 - 00:27:43:21
Speaker 2
You know, any piece of architecture that moves them is definitely neuroaesthetic. They should just look at it more carefully. For lots of people, that's different. Some people would say the Pantheon, some people would say the deli on the corner. There's reasons why it works. I would say that for me, one of the seminal books was actually one written by Richard Neutra, and it's about survival through design, and that he's also such a aside from being an amazing architect, he's incredible writer and it's a really wonderful thing.
00:27:43:21 - 00:28:00:15
Speaker 2
And then there's another beautiful book I would recommend called Architecture as a Verb. That was written by my friend Sarah Robinson, and she brings together ideas of philosophy, art, science and being into this language. So if anyone's interested, I would say, try any of those things.
00:28:00:19 - 00:28:06:03
Speaker 1
I thank you for that. That's I hadn't even prepped you on that question. So usually the only thing I give people and I forgot.
00:28:06:03 - 00:28:11:22
Speaker 2
So No, no, no, that's totally okay. And I mean, I teach, you know, so it's helpful.
00:28:11:22 - 00:28:14:05
Speaker 1
It's true. You're ready with the syllabus.
00:28:14:07 - 00:28:20:07
Speaker 2
But but also, yeah, if they follow us on Instagram, they can always see any new thing that comes up.
00:28:20:09 - 00:28:38:23
Speaker 1
It's great. So final question, Suchi. We're in 2025, May 2025. As we look towards the future, imagine another 25 years of your practice. So we're in 2050. What's your greatest hope for the future of neuroaesthetics?
00:28:39:00 - 00:29:04:15
Speaker 2
My greatest hope is that it becomes as essential and ingrained into design to really think about what we're doing. All this material, you know, carbon energy that we're putting into making our world. Are we doing it for the right reasons? I really want it to be able to affect that, and I see that it could.
00:29:04:17 - 00:29:18:11
Speaker 1
I love that. Thank you so much for joining us. This I knew it would be a fascinating conversation and it did not disappoint. Thanks, Suchi Reddy, of Reddymade based in New York City for joining us on Future of XYZ.
00:29:18:13 - 00:29:21:19
Speaker 2
Thank you, Lisa. It's always a pleasure. See you soon.
00:29:21:21 - 00:29:40:08
Speaker 1
See you soon. And for everyone watching and listening, make sure that you follow us on Instagram. Subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And if you prefer to watch and you're not already, you can watch every episode every other Thursday on YouTube. We will see you again in two weeks. Thanks again.
00:29:40:10 - 00:29:41:22
Speaker 2
Thanks, Lisa. Bye.