Architectural Design for the Survival Optimization of Panicking Fleeing Victims

摘要

Panic is a powerful and at tunes deadly force; hence the aim of the project is to provide initial modifications in architecture to a large room full of panicking individuals to optimize the evacuation. This was done using a model constructed by Helbing, Farkas, and Vicsek [1]. After reproducing the main results, this model was used to explore the behavior of a mixed crowd, in which only a percentage of the victims were panicking. The main part of the project is then focused on examining architectural adjustments to increase the victim flow out of the room. The outcome of these experiments yielded fruitful results, which at times almost doubled the victim flow velocity. This leaves great room for further more ambitious experiments like full-on evolution of architectural design.