Johns Hopkins IAM Lab Launches Global Design Challenge to Create Places Where Humanity Thrives

Baltimore, MD, Friday, November 13, 2026 – The International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab), Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is bringing architecture, neuroscience, and community knowledge together to help design places that support human health. The Intentional Spaces Initiative builds on the IAM Lab’s work to apply neuroaesthetics research to health, wellbeing, and learning to understand how the arts and aesthetic experiences affect the brain, body and behavior. Intentional Spaces brings that focus to neurospatial design, or how places are conceived, designed, and evaluated, and how the people who use them help shape those decisions.

Research across neuroaesthetics, psychology, architecture, and design increasingly shows that light, sound, texture, form, and access to nature shape how people feel, think, heal, and connect. Applying that knowledge to architecture calls for designers, researchers, and communities to work together.

The Intentional Spaces Initiative released a Roadmap in January 2026 that sets out practical steps for applying this research to design. It draws on a 2023 summit that convened more than 300 leaders and a subsequent field survey, and organizes the work around three strategic pillars: Evidence, Infrastructure, and Community.

IAM Lab is putting the Roadmap into practice through its Architect-in-Residence program, professional development, and this global Design Challenge that invites others to contribute original ideas.

Opening the work to others

The inaugural Intentional Spaces Design Challenge: Designing Places Where Humanity Thrives extends a global invitation to contribute to this effort. It asks interdisciplinary teams to envision a new Community Health & Wellbeing place that supports people across the lifespan, grounded in the needs, strengths, and aspirations of a specific community.

“We know that our environments are not neutral. They shape our experiences, our behaviors, our relationships, and our health,” noted Susan Magsamen, Founder and Executive Director of the International Arts + Mind Lab (IAM Lab) Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Co-Director of the NeuroArts Blueprint Initiative. “The Intentional Spaces Design Challenge is an invitation to imagine what’s possible when we bring together evidence, creativity, and community knowledge.”

The brief for this Design Challenge leaves the building type and program open. Teams will consider the full experience of a place, including its architecture, interiors, landscape, sensory qualities, social and cultural meaning, and relationship to its surroundings.

Each team must include at least three named members representing design and spatial practice, health and human sciences, and the community for which the place is designed. Community knowledge and lived experience must help shape each proposal from the start.

Proposals must show how research and other credible forms of knowledge inform specific spatial decisions, the experiences those decisions are intended to support, and how teams would evaluate anticipated health and wellbeing outcomes if the place were built. Accessibility, inclusion, participation, and belonging are central to the brief.

The aim is to generate original ideas and learning that can inform work beyond the competition while respecting differences among communities, cultures, and places. With teams’ permission and appropriate credit, submissions will be listed and categorized on the Design Challenge website so designers, developers, community leaders, and others can discover the work.

This Design Challenge is launched in partnership with the Global Wellness Institute and Aldar with support from the Pedersen Foundation. “We’re excited to be working with the Global Wellness Institute, which focuses on empowering wellness through research, public education, and advocacy, and Aldar, a real estate development firm with a focus on creating integrated and livable spaces,” continued Ms. Magsamen. “Our Intentional Spaces Initiative Working Group has been an essential partner in helping conceptualize this Design Challenge and the ongoing support of the Pedersen Foundation has also enabled us to create a call for submissions that embraces the principles of neurospatial design.”

Design Challenge Details

The Design Challenge registration will open with the Challenge announcement at the Global Wellness Summit in Phuket, Thailand, November 13, 2026. Interested individuals and teams can register to receive Challenge updates and information. Submissions open February 1, 2027, and proposals are due June 1, 2027.

Three award recipients will be recognized at the Global Wellness Summit in London in November 2027, including a first-place recipient receiving a $50,000 cash award. The first-place recipient will also be invited to participate in a Global Wellness Institute real estate event in May 2028.

The Challenge is an ideas competition, with no commitment to build a winning proposal. Any future development, research, piloting, or implementation would require a separate agreement with the team and relevant partners.

For registration, eligibility, and full Challenge guidelines, visit the Intentional Spaces Design Challenge webpage.

Press kit including images: Johns Hopkins International Arts + Mind Lab Design Challenge Launch

Resource links

Intentional Spaces Roadmap

Intentional Space Foundations

Intentional Spaces Initiative

IAM Lab announces Architect in Residence

About the International Arts + Mind Lab

The International Arts + Mind Lab, Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics (IAM Lab) is a multidisciplinary research-to-practice initiative at Johns Hopkins University that is accelerating the field of neuroarts through the study of neuroaesthetics. The IAM Lab is pioneering Impact Thinking, a translational research approach designed to solve intractable problems in health, wellbeing, and learning through the arts. The IAM Lab brings together brain scientists and practitioners in the visual and performing arts, architecture and design, and creative arts therapies to foster collaboration and research. The goal of the IAM Lab is to empower the global neuroaesthetics community to change the way we think today and enhance the way we live tomorrow.

The IAM Lab’s Intentional Spaces Initiative, which focuses on bridging research, architecture, and design for health and wellbeing, is supported by the Pedersen Foundation.

About the Global Wellness Institute

The Global Wellness Institute (GWI), a nonprofit 501(c)(3), is considered the leading global research and educational resource for the global wellness industry and is known for introducing major industry initiatives and regional events that bring together leaders to chart the future. GWI positively impacts global health and wellness by educating public institutions, businesses, and individuals on how they can work to prevent disease, reduce stress, and enhance overall quality of life. Its mission is to empower wellness worldwide.

About Aldar

Aldar is the leading real estate developer, manager, and investor in Abu Dhabi, with a growing presence across the United Arab Emirates, the Middle East and North Africa, and Europe.

The company has two core business segments, Aldar Development and Aldar Investment.

Aldar Development is a master developer of a 72.1 million sqm strategic landbank, creating integrated and thriving communities across Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Ras Al Khaimah’s most desirable destinations. The delivery of Aldar’s developments is managed by Aldar Projects, which is also a key partner of the Abu Dhabi government in delivering housing and infrastructure projects across the UAE’s capital. Internationally, Aldar Development wholly owns UK real estate developer London Square, as well as a majority stake in leading Egyptian real estate development company, SODIC.

Aldar Investment, with total assets under management of AED 57 billion, houses a core asset management business comprising a portfolio of investment-grade and income-generating real estate assets diversified across retail, residential, commercial, industrial and logistics, hospitality, property and facilities management, and education segments. It manages four core platforms: Aldar Investment Properties, Aldar Hospitality, Aldar Education, and Aldar Estates.

For more information on Aldar please visit www.aldar.com.

Press Contact: Jane Ivana Hong, JIH PR, [email protected]

Architecture Design Environment Health IAM Lab Johns Hopkins Medicine Neuroaesthetics Research Wellbeing