HMC Contributes to Innovative Study of Wayfinding and Evidence-Based Design
Calit2’s research into the effects of design on human cognition and behavior began with its ongoing investigation into wayfinding
(3/31/2009)
Posted by: Chris Gaerig, Associate Editor
California-based HMC Architects is contributing more than $100,000 as well as professional services over the next two years to the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2). The gift will expand the institute's multidisciplinary research into human responses to the built environment.
Calit2 at the University of California, San Diego, is the home of the StarCAVE virtual-reality environment, a 360-degree, 16-panel, 3-D immersive environment that enables researchers to interact with virtual architectural renderings in three dimensions, in real time and at actual scale.
“This technology ultimately allows us to put the ‘evidence’ into evidence-based design,” said Randy Peterson, FAIA, LEED AP, president and CEO of HMC Architects. “We are looking to develop a system that will give us information to validate the positive effects buildings can have on users of all types—from patients, doctors, and visitors in healthcare settings to students, teachers, researchers, and the general public in learning environments.”
Calit2’s research into the effects of design on human cognition and behavior began with its ongoing investigation into wayfinding. Together with Scott Makeig and Klaus Gramann of the UC San Diego-based Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience, as well as Jürgen Schulze of Calit2 and neuroscientist Eve Edelstein, a visiting scholar at UCSD and senior vice-president of research and design with HMC Architects, Eduardo Macagno, founding dean of the UC San Diego Division of Biological Sciences and president of the Academy of Neurosciences for Architecture (ANFA), and his team are developing an interactive and synchronized VR and electroencephalography (EEG) prototype in the StarCAVE to study the neural structures associated with wayfinding.
The research, which was conceived by Macagno after attending a workshop sponsored by ANFA, aims to gain a better understanding of how humans create and use "cognitive maps" of architectural spaces. The researchers also hope to learn which cues are most easily recognized—and therefore the most successful—in helping users navigate through complex buildings.
Calit2 Project Scientist Jürgen Schulze says that the HMC funding will take the research one step further and make it possible for users to modify architectural models in real time within the StarCAVE.
The groundbreaking architectural research unfolding in the StarCAVE seeks to demonstrate how evidence-based design can become a method for creating buildings that may save lives and money or improve learning outcomes.
California-based 
