About

Today, more than ever before, the design and frequent adaptation of the environment by means of architectural design is critical for occupant-related outcomes that emerge from situated interactions between people, technologies and objects over time. Despite the great potential architecture holds for improving spatial outcomes, architecture students (and as a result, practicing architects alike) are often forced to rely on their intuition and experience to anticipate occupants’ behavior in response to architectural design solutions.

At the same time, the field of cognitive science, supported by empirical methods and innovative advancements in AI-supported virtual reality simulations, offers novel and more precise ways of forecasting human behavior. Our aim is to take a step towards bridging the disconnect between these two fields and integrate cognitive science methods into architectural design education to equip students with tools to become better practitioners, able to leverage scientific and analytical skills to design more humane and sustainable environments.