MASTERPIECE ESSAY #1

            Ever wonder if your surroundings affect the way you think? Ever wonder how the rooms in your house affect your thinking? Ever stop to think that even the colors or architecture you are exposed to can influence you to be more creative or even learn better?

            The architecture and color of rooms and buildings are there for more than just looking good, they’re there to influence how we think and go about our daily lives. There is even the possibility that colors can even help with ADD and even help with brain functions in the elderly.

            The design of a room can greatly affect the way people look at not only the room but also the way that they think while they are inside. Rooms with higher ceilings are more beneficial towards thoughts about “limitless ideas” and relating thoughts. The opposite goes for lower ceilings; they encourage more thoughts about limiting factors and problems. Lofted ceilings influence more open ideas and allow for more free thinking.

            The color of a room similarly works in the same way as ceiling heights do. People’s primal instincts use colors to help with distinguishing day and night. This is done through colors of shorter wavelengths like blue violet and indigo. When people see these colors in larger amounts it helps them wake up in the morning and opens up creative thoughts by allowing us to think of the beach and the sky and its limitless possibilities. Longer wavelength colors like red and orange signify danger and caution. These colors make our rods and cones in our eyes fire at a higher rate than shorter wavelength colors. The higher neuron fire rate causes people to be more alert than normal. Green colors help to promote learning. This comes from nature being green and our ties to nature and its tranquility. It has also been shown that green helps those with ADD focus better in school and at home.

            One of the biggest and most important things that affects people’s learning is the amount of sunlight we are exposed to. It is shown that sunlight helps to stimulate the brain function and help learning. For instance students who see and are exposed to more sunlight in a school day learn better than those only exposed to artificial or dimmer light did not learn as well. Sunlight also was proved to affect the elderly in similar ways. Those exposed to more sunlight show a slower rate of mental deterioration than those exposed to less.

            In building the use of corners and curves affect how comfortable a person is in a room. People have distinguished curves to be safe and comforting and corners to be sharp and dangerous. This is why most buildings try to refrain from corners and rely more on curves to help with the comfort of the inhabitants of the buildings. The other bonus of curves is in building with arches and the natural strength of an arch over a more square or rectangular building style.

            Now knowing this and if I were given the chance to redesign the school I would definitely incorporate more trees and plants and almost give a nature feel to the campus. I would make class rooms more spread out and not so bunched together and possibly make it a two story school so that the hallways could be more open and have more light in through them. In first floor classrooms there would be larger windows to allow more light in the classrooms and help to facilitate learning. In second floor rooms I would have 5 tube lights put in to allow a more natural light source for a better learning environment. For a study/ lunch area I would want a place where it was almost a flower garden with a number of shade trees to allow for a relaxing area to sit and enjoy afternoons. Overall just these few modifications would allow for a better learning environment and a better campus.