Evaluating Space-Use Prediction Approaches towards Sustainable Buildings

摘要

Predicting uses of building spaces is a complex task of architects that necessitates the integration processof various information:user, user activity, user's preferences, and space information.In addition, during project development, architects often need to test multiple scenarios with a different set of aforementioned information.To address such complexity and assist architects in predicting space-use, the following four different approaches have evolved: a guidelines approach, workplace planning theory, user simulation, and space-use analysis.This paper evaluates these approaches using a case example and,based on these findings, discusses a potential approach that combines the two most recent approaches, i.e., space-use analysis and user simulation, which would enable automated mapping of user activities onto spaces in the simulation context.Advancement of building space-use prediction methods wouldassistarchitects inreducing the floor area of a building without harming its functionality, thereby contributing to economic and environmental sustainability.