Reducing the environmental impact of new construction projects through general purpose building design and multi-agent crowd simulation

Abstract

This paper presents a two stage process for using intelligent agent technology in designing space-efficient buildings in order to reduce their environmental impact. An environment editor for designing new construction projects is described, followed by a microscopic crowd simulation model that is used to test the operational efficiency of the designed building. Each member of the crowd is represented as an intelligent agent, which allows for more complex goal-directed behaviour, which in turn leads to more realistic crowd behaviour. Crowd simulations can be used to detect potential problem areas, as well as identify areas that may safely be made smaller. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.