A Synthetic Design Approach by Integrating Agent Based Modelling with Virtual Reality

From modeling to renderings, from conceptualization to visualization, digital applications are ubiquitous amongst architectural industries that now afford designers with the opportunity to access and analyze information with a complexity at an order of speed and depth that wasn’t conceived as being possible before. In urban design particularly, the growing complexity of cities requires new modeling techniques as traditional approaches are no longer adequate to describe complicated urban scenarios. (Batty 2007) In this case, agent-based modeling is considered one of the applicable methods and has been further developed to adopt different objectives, (Heppenstall, 2011) and has proved useful for design process by suggesting various forms of analytical and statistical evidence (Aschwanden 2011).

In most agent-based simulations, particularly in crowd simulation scenarios, the outputs we expected are usually a series of intricate 2D evaluation maps with corresponding figures and recorded animations. However, we argue that the classic post-simulation procedure which follows observation - analysis - design adaption (Aschwanden 2011) can be tuned and further enhanced in three aspects. Firstly, pattern observation and data analysis are commonly accomplished two-dimensionally that might overlook some crucial architectural properties from 3D. Secondly, rules of agents and system are frequently preset and calibrated globally from a ‘god perspective’ and neglects the engagements in local scale. Finally, a typical simulation offers a series of objective metrics but rarely well-correlated with subjective aspects like aesthetics, resulting revised models may not be properly integrated with design propositions.