Design for Aging: Gaming Sociability—Using Agent-Based Modeling to Understand How Designs Affect Sociability

We’re in the midst of a loneliness and isolation epidemic that is affecting all ages, but mostly older adults. Architects intuitively know that some buildings will better enable social interactions. But until now, there hasn’t been an evidence-based tool available to demonstrate how building design impacts social isolation in the places we live and work. Human Studio architects of Vancouver, Canada recently developed an open source, public good, software tool, FLUID Sociability, that uses video game technology to simulate the behavior of digital “agents” in buildings and then measures the number of social interactions between “agents.” By running this simulation in different building design options, we can see which one has higher community interaction. The first version of the tool has been built to focus on general access multi-unit residential buildings. Human Studio is working towards a new version to specifically focus on seniors housing.

Join us for a presentation followed by a discussion on FLUID, the socializing tool created by Human Studio as it is being developed and applied to Senior Housing.