Introduction

Architectural programming—the framing of a project’s goals for economic and functional performance—provides the basis for design, and therefore for the functioning of a building throughout its lifetime. A program is the essential instrument of evidence-based design. Site conditions, precedents, space needs and cost considerations are the backbone from which the anatomy of the program evolves. The brain was once thought to establish its neural networks in childhood and young adulthood with little subsequent modification. Recent design practices have not acknowledged or accommodated the several million years-old evolution of our unique human brain. Regulation as an emotional/physiological state is initially established in the caregiver/infant bonding relationship and subsequently expanded to incorporate the family group, and then the wider community. Commercial interests seek to stimulate the central nervous system in order to motivate specific behaviors.