Using game-like narrative to simulate human behaviour in built environments

Predicting future users' behaviour and their activities in a building is a highly complex task that designers have to face during the design process. Despite its importance, few methods exist that can predict and help evaluate this type of building performance during the design process itself. Simulative approaches are gradually overcoming this shortcoming, but at present their application is limited to the representation of specific occurrences and behavioural performance aspects, such as emergency egress. Based on current developments in the video game industry, our research aims to establish a new approach to human behaviour simulation in built environments, based on a clear and reliable representation of the use processes occurring in a building. At its core is simulation based on the notion of events, defined as active entities on their own, comprised of space, people, and activities. These events entities are structured into collections called narratives, which represent and allow the simulation of the step-by-step performing of activities by users in a built environment.