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Emotional Architecture - Using Psychological Profiles to Desi...

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The idea of an emotional architecture is not a new one; it has long been the counterbalance to another fundamental architectural principle, that of “rational” space. Karrie Jacobs, an architecture writer and the author of “The Perfect $100,000 House: A Trip Across America and Back in Pursuit of a Place to Call Home” (Penguin, 2007), said she thought emotional architecture was a redundancy, like emo rock. “I mean, if architecture isn’t emotional, what good is it?” she said. “This may be a minority opinion, since many Modernists liked to think of themselves and their buildings as utterly rational, but I think that all good architecture, no matter the style or period, has emotional power.”

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Interestingly, the Modernist architect Richard Neutra practiced a method similar to Mr. Travis’s, extracting detailed biographies from his clients in a take-home questionnaire, said Alice T. Friedman, professor of the history of American art at Wellesley and the author of “Women and the Making of the Modern House” (Yale University Press; 2006).

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“It shows real forward thinking, but I don’t know how realistic that is,” said Toby Israel, author of “Some Place Like Home: Using Design Psychology to Create Ideal Places.” Ms. Israel is an environmental psychologist in Princeton, N.J., who, like Mr. Travis, helps clients reach “emotional goals” through the décor and layout of their spaces; a lot of her work deals with childhood memories of place. Her method uses one-on-one sessions, like therapy, usually three three-hour marathons, she said, that she conducts herself.

“I totally accept that the story of a house is the story of a life,” she said. “But interpreting that story is not just a science, but an art.” She said it sounded like Mr. Travis was an artful interpreter — clearly “a connector,” she said — and she wondered why he would want to develop his method beyond his client base.

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