CPM is excited to host a conversation with Ann Sussman, RA, an architect, author and researcher who has given over 80 lectures at regional conferences and universities. Sussman uses current research in psychology and neuroscience to explain why we favor certain urban conditions and building configurations and shun others. Her books, including Cognitive Architecture (2015, 2nd ed. 2021) and Urban Experience + Design (2021), written with Justin B. Hollander, walk planning practitioners through recent studies to reveal the unconscious tendencies at work when we navigate the world around us, proposing that planners take an inside-out approach to design. By understanding ourselves better, Sussman believes, we are better able to build environments that are more humane and, ultimately, which make for a happier, healthier public realm. Sussman serves as President of the Human Architecture and Planning Institute (theHapi.org), a non-profit dedicated to understanding how buildings influence our behavior and to improving the built environment through education and research. Using eye-tracking, heat mapping and other biometric tools, the HAPI promotes evidence-based design approaches that prioritize creating more enriching public and community experiences.
For more information on how biometrics, neuroscience and psychology are informing the work of Sussman and the HAPI, read CPM board member Mark Favermann's commentary on Arts Fuse. Then learn more about Sussman and her long list of past speaking engagements by visiting her website.
This presentation and discussion is a free virtual event open to all, regardless of your membership status with CPM. If you aren't a member yet, we invite you to join CPM today. Register to attend this event by 11/17/2022.
Ann Sussman, RA
Passionate about understanding how buildings influence people emotionally, Ann Sussman is an architect, author, researcher and frequent speaker. Her book, Cognitive Architecture, Designing for How We Respond to the Built Environment (2015), co-authored with Justin B. Hollander, won the 2016 Place Research Award from the Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA). Sussman has been a keynote speaker at architecture events in Houston, Cincinnati and Nashville in 2017, and presented at Greenbuild/Berlin in 2018 and Greenbuild/Amsterdam in 2019. She is the current President of the Human Architecture and Planning Institute, which seeks to promote and provide access to science-backed information, education, and research in order to understand and improve how we experience the built environment.
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2022-2023 Speaker Series
This talk is part of the CPM 2022-2023 Speaker Series, a collection of talks and panels in which CPM seeks to provide a platform for non-traditional urban design and planning lectures and presentations. Featuring experts from government, private sector, academia and nonprofit organizations speaking on timely and compelling topics—ranging from biometric research to augmented reality landscapes, equitable development, and more—CPM believes this series will be at once challenging and educational, as well as entertaining.
