CIRCA – Interdisciplinary Collective for Research on Architectural Cognition – is a research and reflection collective dedicated to studying the relationships between architecture, cognition and experience. It explores how architecture thinks and makes us think, seeking to understand how spatiality, materiality and form contribute to the constitution of perception, emotion and judgement.
CIRCA is situated at the intersection of philosophy, architectural theory and cognitive science, with the ambition of establishing a philosophy of architectural cognition – that is, a reflection on what it means to know, perceive and design architecturally, both from the point of view of sensory experience and conceptual thought.
CIRCA is neither a laboratory for cognitive science applied to architecture nor a simple collective of architects interested in neuroscience: it advocates a critical and reflexive approach, in which architecture becomes a cognitive environment, a space for experimentation where processes of embodied perception, imagination, emotion and reflection unfold. From this perspective, architectural cognition refers not only to the way we perceive or understand buildings, but also to the way in which the practices of design, representation and spatial experience contribute to the cognitive processes themselves.
CIRCA brings together researchers from the fields of philosophy, architectural theory, cognitive science and visual arts, focusing on several areas of research:
– the epistemology of design and representation practices;
– embodied and enactive theories of spatial perception;
– the links between emotion, empathy and aesthetic judgement;
– the place of immersive technologies (VR/AR) in the cognitive exploration of space.
Through its publications, seminars, collaborations and artistic projects, CIRCA aims to restore philosophical depth to architectural cognition, conceiving it not as an applied science, but as a field of critical thinking about the ways in which perception, design and representation shape our understanding and experience of the built world.
In short, CIRCA defends the idea that architecture is not only an object of study for cognition, but also an instrument of knowledge — a field where specific forms of thought are developed through practice and perception.