This research project focuses on the recognition that the surrounding environment affects people’s health and well-being. Bridging architecture and neuroscience, it is possible to demonstrate how space in its broad meaning affects biologically and psychologically humans; therefore this thesis investigates the application of findings from scientific research about environmental psychology and neuroscience applied to architecture, on a design which aims to the creation of a place able to enhance mental well-being.

The result is a project that focuses on the regeneration of the abandoned psychiatric hospital San Salvi (Florence, Italy), aiming to its integration in the urban flows and urban consciousness, through the planning of new functions and the design of outdoor spaces, rooted in the past of the location, and in the findings from the literature study about human’s response to the built environment.