Abstract
Post-conflict architectural interventions often overlook survivors’ altered cognitive and emotional landscapes. This paper introduces cognitive-embedded design—a framework that reconceives architecture as an active participant in collective healing. The study adopts a speculative, research- through-design approach integrating conceptual inquiry with spatial and technical prototyping. Using the redesign of Sarajevo’s Grbavica Market as a case study, it demonstrates how sensor-driven spatial systems can support trauma recovery when orchestrated through Judith Herman’s three-phase model and 4E cognition principles. The project integrates responsive boundaries, bio-adaptive narratives, and culturally rooted craft spaces that attune to healing rhythms while preserving user agency through community governance. While primarily conceptual, its feasibility is supported by small-scale prototyping and by existing research showing that physiological sensing and adaptive environmental systems can mediate emotional regulation within architectural contexts. The work contributes a transferable framework for creating environments that evolve with their communities, challenging static memorial paradigms and reframing architecture as a living system for collective recovery.
Keywords
Cognitive-embedded design; Trauma-informed architecture; 4E cognition; Post-conflict healing
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.950
Citation
Chen, X.,and Jiang, Z.(2025) From Trauma to Transformation: A Cognitive-Embedded Design Framework for Responsive Healing Environments, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.950
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 10 - Design Practices & Impacts
From Trauma to Transformation: A Cognitive-Embedded Design Framework for Responsive Healing Environments
Post-conflict architectural interventions often overlook survivors’ altered cognitive and emotional landscapes. This paper introduces cognitive-embedded design—a framework that reconceives architecture as an active participant in collective healing. The study adopts a speculative, research- through-design approach integrating conceptual inquiry with spatial and technical prototyping. Using the redesign of Sarajevo’s Grbavica Market as a case study, it demonstrates how sensor-driven spatial systems can support trauma recovery when orchestrated through Judith Herman’s three-phase model and 4E cognition principles. The project integrates responsive boundaries, bio-adaptive narratives, and culturally rooted craft spaces that attune to healing rhythms while preserving user agency through community governance. While primarily conceptual, its feasibility is supported by small-scale prototyping and by existing research showing that physiological sensing and adaptive environmental systems can mediate emotional regulation within architectural contexts. The work contributes a transferable framework for creating environments that evolve with their communities, challenging static memorial paradigms and reframing architecture as a living system for collective recovery.