Tiziana Proietti (M.Arch., Ph.D.) is a designer and Associate Professor at the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma, with joint appointments in the Departments of Architecture and Interior Design. She is the founding director of the Sense|Base Laboratory, an interdisciplinary research space that explores the intersection of architecture and neuroscience, with a particular emphasis on how humans perceive architectural proportion.
Dr. Proietti earned her doctorate from the Department of Architecture at Sapienza University of Rome, in collaboration with Delft University of Technology. Her dissertation examined the theory of proportion in architecture, laying the foundation for her ongoing research into the cognitive and perceptual dimensions of design. In partnership with Dr. Sergei Gepshtein of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, she is developing a research program that integrates neuroscientific insights with architectural practice to test long-standing hypotheses about spatial perception and proportion.
Her work embraces an interdisciplinary approach to design, extending from architecture to interior and product design. She seeks to bridge scientific inquiry and creative practice, exploring how ideas take form through material, spatial, and sensory experience. Beyond her scientific and architectural research, Proietti’s work is rooted in a profound artistic practice of drawing and making. She regards drawing as an essential medium for thinking—where intuition, observation, and imagination converge. Through this practice, she explores the dialogue between perceiving and knowing, fostering in her students a reflective and experimental design attitude that values both precision and imagination.
She is the creator of Vision Training for Designers, an innovative pedagogical method that combines visual exercises and brain-training principles to help designers refine their perceptual sensitivity and cultivate an embodied understanding of proportion in creative practice.
Dr. Proietti also serves on the Advisory Council of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture (ANFA), contributing to the advancement of research at the intersection of design and human experience.
