Your Custom Text Here
Photography by Aaron Schorch
Clarity has been awarded third-place in the 2020 Signshop Competition hosted by Signs of the Times, a national sign-industry trade publication. Congratulations to our team including Fabricators Option Signs & Environmental Graphics, and environmental graphics designers Lorenc+Yoo Design, and graphic designers Handshake Union for recognition of this beautiful work!
Image courtesy of Constellations
Design Elements Consider All Aspects of Health - Physical, Mental, Social, Spiritual, and Emotional.
When Constellations, a shared workspace in Atlanta's historic Sweet Auburn neighborhood, opened in 2017, the goal was to architect an ecosystem that considers the well-being of its members, tenants and guests, explains founder and CEO Gene Kansas. Little did he know how important this emphasis on health and happiness would be just three years later…
Lots of people are working from home right now, many for the first time and not by choice, which can be challenging. In this white paper we provide practical recommendations for ways you can design a place to do great work from home.
Read more
Promoting health through design of the built environment is, and will remain, the reason Cognitive Design exists. We’re all in a challenging situation and solidarity will help us overcome this hardship. The necessary changes we’re all making to minimize the spread of communicable diseases come with their own challenges…
Read more
AIA Atlanta recently published its annual magazine DESIGN EQUILIBRIUM. This year’s issue explores the topic of Life Cycle and features all things Atlanta architecture including the chapter's annual award winners. And the best part is that you can read the entire issue online for free, no hand washing required. Founder Matthew Finn, AIA contributed an article entitled Cultural Preservation and Restoration (pages 72-77), which discusses how four Cognitive Design projects contribute meaningfully to local culture.
Cognitive Design released a white paper by authors Matthew Finn and Majd Gharib that was over 2 years in the making - Building Community: Social Isolation and the Built Environment. This research shines a light on how thoughtful design and programs can work together to facilitate equity and social community, even in some pretty challenging places.
With a focus on suburban and rural communities, this paper explores the relationship between the built environment and social isolation by identifying risk factors, known interventions, and environmental design considerations to facilitate an intervention’s efficacy.
Congratulations to Cognitive Design Consultant Majd Gharib, who just published his paper Mental Health and Urban Design – Zoning in on PTSD in the journal Current Psychology by Springer© Publishing. The paper explores the historical relationship between Health and Urban Design to trace links between Mental Health and Urban Design with a special focus on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Erin Ishizaki, Elizabeth MacPherson, and Matthew Finn presented a panel discussion, moderated by Nisha Botchwey, at the 2019 International Conference Greenbuild.
The interactive learning session titled Healthy Designs for Healthy Minds explored how design can proactively foster a healthy mind by encouraging inclusion, social relationships, and freedom of choice.
The conference was held at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, GA. Keynote speakers included Architect Jean Gang, civil rights and peace advocate Dr. Bernice King, and President Barak Obama.
About the presenters:
Dr. Nisha Botchwey is an Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning at the Georgia Institute of Technology and an adjunct professor at Emory University’s School of Public Health.
Erin Ishizaki, AIA, AICP, LEED AP ND is an urban designer, planner, architect, and Partner at Mithun in Seattle, WA.
Elizabeth MacPherson, ASID, IIDA, LEED AP is an interior designer and Partner at Mithun in Seattle, WA.
Matthew Finn, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, is an Architect and Founder of Cognitive Design in Atlanta, GA.
Nominated by Jan Golembiewski, PhD from Sydney, Australia, Cognitive Design Consultant Maj Gary was invited to speak at the 2019 European Federation of Psychology Students' Associations (EFPSA) conference held in Prague, Czech Republic. Maj delivered a recorded presentation in which he discussed his research on PTSD and Urban Design from his published paper published in Current Psychology.
Joe Waters, Co-Founder + CEO of children’s health think tank Capita Social, talks with Matt Finn about how good design leads to good health, redesigning pediatric clinical environments to support the early relational health of young children, and about Matt Finn’s most inspiring building. Read the interview.
Livable Buckhead features guest author and neighborhood resident, Matt Finn, as he discusses what he and his wife, Stephanie, do in their home for the holidays - and why they choose to enjoy a lot of time there. Read the article.
Atlanta magazine has been producing an annual Best of Atlanta list for 37 years; their team of editors and writers combs the metro area all year to determine the best places to dine, play, and shop. In 2018 Best of Atlanta named Constellations the Best eye-catching coworking space. Read why under the header City Life and learn about how Constellations supports entrepreneurs with a workplace for the 21st century in a 1910 Southern School Book Building.
From KSU: Three prominent Kennesaw State University alumni, Daryle Higginbotham ’89, Brian Pendley ’94, and Matt Finn ’07, were recognized during KSU’s 27th Annual Distinguished Alumni Awards dinner. The event, sponsored by Nationwide, was held in conjunction with Kennesaw State’s 2018 Homecoming week.
The Distinguished Alumni Award program was established in 1992 to honor KSU’s most accomplished graduates on an annual basis. A distinguished alumnus/alumna is a person who exemplifies the ideals and mission of the University; demonstrates distinguished achievement in his/her chosen field at a local, regional and/or national level; and embodies the spirit of Kennesaw State’s commitment to community engagement through service, University involvement or philanthropic endeavors.
Read the article: Distinguished Alumni Honors
Read the article by KSU President Pamela Whitten: KSU Alumni: Vital Members of the Owl Family
From VoyageATL: Every neighborhood in Atlanta has its own vibe, style, culture and history, but what consistently amazes us is not what differentiates the various neighborhoods but rather what they all have in common. VoyageATL finds the amazing souls that breathe life into our city. In the recent weeks we’ve had the privilege to connect with some of the Atlanta’s finest artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and rabble rousers and we can’t begin to express how impressed we are with our city’s incredibly deep talent pool. Check out one of Atlanta’s rising stars Matt Finn.
As part of Kennesaw State University's Diversability Expo, Dr. Jeffrey Orr moderates a session with presentations and a panel discussion by Psychologist Kevin Henderson of CaringWorks and architect Matt Finn of Cognitive Design. Their session “Architecture and Programming through Holistic Approaches” was a Universal Access and Environmental Responsibility presentation, with Sign Language and Computer Assisted Real-Time Transcription (CART) services for hearing- or vision-impaired.
Constellations profiles architect Matt Finn - who they're happy to say is the architect of their adaptive reuse of a 1910 Neel Reid building into a civic and social shared workspace - and that Cognitive Design will have an office there, too!
Follow @constellations.community on instagram to watch this space come to life as we march towards a Grand Opening in Spring 2018!
Cobb County Public Library System hosts Matt Finn as part of their ongoing series Conversations: Build a Better World. Matt’s discussed, in his presentation entitled Designing for Health and Healing, his research as a professional engaged in addressing how the built environment affects human health and wellbeing. The program was moderated by Dr. Tony Rizzuto, chair of the Kennesaw State University Department of Architecture.
Congratulations to Laura Sherman and Brandon Aultman for winning first and second place in the Kennesaw State University Architecture 2017 Thesis Competition! The competition judging was led by moderator Matt Finn (Cognitive Design) and included guest critics Jeremy Ficca (Carnegie Mellon University), Zoë Ryan (Art Institute of Chicago), Vaughn Horn (Boston Architectural College), and Alex Paulson (Randall Paulson Architects).
Kennesaw State University Magazine features alumnus Matthew A. Finn (Founder, Cognitive Design) in their Spring 2017 print issue citing his "insight on the correlation between human health and environment design." Tony Rizzuto, chair of the department of Architecture, describes Matt's work by saying "His research has had a transformative impact on the field of healthcare design, one that we can all benefit from.”
The Atlanta Better Buildings Challenge (ABBC) who were recently named the 2017 EPA Climate Leadership Award for Innovative Partnerships, held their first 2017 Steering Committee meeting at the Southface Campus. Input from a wide variety of experts from across the country, including TerraCycle founder Tom Szaky, Healthy Design expert Matt Finn, and numerous representatives form Atlanta's 5 largest neighborhood organizations, helped generate compelling ideas for the future of ABBC.
Still haven’t found what you’re looking for? If searching for a term or two doesn’t do the trick, just send an email to hello@cognitive.design, and we’ll get back to you soon.
