Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban design considers 'bigger picture' issues of economic, social and environmental value and social design. The scope of a project can range from a local street or public space to an entire city and surrounding areas. Urban designers connect the fields of architecture, landscape architecture and urban planning to better organize physical space and community environments.
The term space syntax encompasses a set of theories and techniques for the analysis of spatial configurations. It was conceived by Bill Hillier, Julienne Hanson, and colleagues at The Bartlett, University College London in the late 1970s to early 1980s to develop insights into the mutually constructive relation between society and space. As space syntax has evolved, certain measures have been found to correlate with human spatial behavior, and space syntax has thus come to be used to forecast likely effects of architectural and urban space on users.
The Seattle Central Library is the flagship library of the Seattle Public Library system. The 11-story glass and steel building in the downtown core of Seattle, Washington was opened to the public on May 23, 2004. Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus of OMA/LMN were the principal architects, and Magnusson Klemencic Associates was the structural engineer with Arup. Arup also provided mechanical, electrical, and plumbing engineering, as well as fire/life safety, security, IT and communications, and audio visual consulting. Hoffman Construction Company of Portland, Oregon, was the general contractor.
In cognitive psychology and neuroscience, spatial memory is a form of memory responsible for the recording and recovery of information needed to plan a course to a location and to recall the location of an object or the occurrence of an event. Spatial memory is necessary for orientation in space. Spatial memory can also be divided into egocentric and allocentric spatial memory. A person's spatial memory is required to navigate around a familiar city. A rat's spatial memory is needed to learn the location of food at the end of a maze. In both humans and animals, spatial memories are summarized as a cognitive map.
A retirement home – sometimes called an old people's home or old age home, although old people's home can also refer to a nursing home – is a multi-residence housing facility intended for the elderly. Typically, each person or couple in the home has an apartment-style room or suite of rooms with an en-suite bathroom. Additional facilities are provided within the building. This can include facilities for meals, gatherings, recreation activities, and some form of health or hospital care. A place in a retirement home can be paid for on a rental basis, like an apartment, or can be bought in perpetuity on the same basis as a condominium.
Immersion into virtual reality (VR) is a perception of being physically present in a non-physical world. The perception is created by surrounding the user of the VR system in images, sound or other stimuli that provide an engrossing total environment.
In computing, 3D interaction is a form of human-machine interaction where users are able to move and perform interaction in 3D space. Both human and machine process information where the physical position of elements in the 3D space is relevant.
Roberta "Bobby Lou" Klatzky is a Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). She specializes in human perception and cognition, particularly relating to visual and non-visual perception and representation of space and geometric shapes. Klatzky received a B.A. in mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1968 and a Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University in 1972. She has done extensive research on human haptic and visual object recognition, navigation under visual and nonvisual guidance, and perceptually guided action.
Topographical disorientation is the inability to orient oneself in one's surroundings, sometimes as a result of focal brain damage. This disability may result from the inability to make use of selective spatial information or to orient by means of specific cognitive strategies such as the ability to form a mental representation of the environment, also known as a cognitive map. It may be part of a syndrome known as visuospatial dysgnosia.
Patrick Alasdair Fionn Turner (19 October 1969 – 6 October 2011) was a British-born scientist, who played a major role in the VR Centre for the Built Environment and the Space group at the University College London. His contribution had a great impact on the development of space syntax theory. This goes in parallel to his research into introducing a dynamic agent model that derives aggregate spatial analysis from the visual affordances of the built environment. Based on the principles of Turner's theory on Embodied space, his agent model proves to correlate well with natural movement behavior in architectural and urban environments. Turner was born on 19 October 1969, in London. He earned an MA in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, and an MSc in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh. Turner was last appointed a reader in Urban and Architectural Computing at the University College London in 2011. Turner died on 6 October 2011 after a long struggle with stomach cancer.
Spatial cognition is the acquisition, organization, utilization, and revision of knowledge about spatial environments. It is most about how animals including humans behave within space and the knowledge they built around it, rather than space itself. These capabilities enable individuals to manage basic and high-level cognitive tasks in everyday life. Numerous disciplines work together to understand spatial cognition in different species, especially in humans. Thereby, spatial cognition studies also have helped to link cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Scientists in both fields work together to figure out what role spatial cognition plays in the brain as well as to determine the surrounding neurobiological infrastructure.
Cognitive geography is an interdisciplinary study of cognitive science and geography. It aims to understand how humans view space, place, and environment. It involves formalizing factors that influence our spatial cognition to create a more effective representation of space. These improved models assist in a variety of issues, for example, developing maps that communicate better, providing navigation instructions that are easier to follow, utilizing space more practically, accounting for the cultural differences on spatial thinking for more effective cross-cultural information exchange, and an overall increased understanding of our environment.
Daniel R. Montello is an American geographer and professor at the Department of Geography of the University of California Santa Barbara, and at its Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, known for his work on geovisualization and cognitive geography.
Sense of direction is the ability to know one's location and perform wayfinding. It is related to cognitive maps, spatial awareness, and spatial cognition. Sense of direction can be impaired by brain damage, such as in the case of topographical disorientation.
Sea Hero Quest is a mobile game which contributes to research on dementia. It was designed by independent British game company Glitchers in 2016 in association with Alzheimer's Research UK, University College London and the University of East Anglia and with funding from Deutsche Telekom. The idea for the game came from neuroscientist Michael Hornberger of the University of East Anglia who collaborated with Hugo Spiers of University College London, Antoine Coutrot of CNRS and a group of six other neuroscientists.
A conscious city is a large built environment that is aware of the needs and activities of its inhabitants and responds to them. Research in conscious cities explores how architecture and urban design can better consider and respond to human needs through data analysis, artificial intelligence, and the application of cognitive sciences in design.
Amelia A. Lake is a British dietitian who is Professor of Biosciences at Teesside University. She works in public health, and is co-founder of the North East Obesogenic Environment Network (NEOeN). She is concerned about the impact of energy drinks on children's health.
Sara Irina Fabrikant is a Swiss geographer and geographical information scientist. She is member of the Swiss Science Council since 2016.
Spatial anxiety is a sense of anxiety an individual experiences while processing environmental information contained in one's geographical space, with the purpose of navigation and orientation through that space. Spatial anxiety is also linked to the feeling of stress regarding the anticipation of a spatial-content related performance task. Particular cases of spatial anxiety can result in a more severe form of distress, as in agoraphobia.
Wayfinding has been used in the context of architecture to refer to the user experience of orientation and navigating within the built environment.
