Environmental psychologists specializing in architectural psychology offer "user needs' assessments" and "post occupancy evaluations" to facilitate communication between users and experts. To compare the efficiency of building descriptions, building walkthroughs, regular plans, simulation, and direct, long-time exposition, evaluation has to be evaluated.

Computer visualizations and virtual realities grow more important, but studies on the effects of simulation techniques upon experts and users are rare. As a contribution to the field of architectural simulation, an expert - user comparison of CAD versus endoscopy/model simulations of a Vienna city project was realized in 1995. The Department for Spatial Simulation at the Vienna University of Technology provided diaslides of the planned city development at Aspern showing a) CAD and b) endoscopy photos of small-scale polystyrol models. In an experimental design, they were presented uncommented as images of "PROJECT A" versus "PROJECT B" to student groups of architects and non-architects at Vienna and Salzburg (n= 95) and assessed by semantic differentials. Two contradictory hypotheses were tested: 1. The "selective framing hypothesis" (SFH) as the subjective theory of planners, postulating different judgement effects (measured by item means of the semantic differential) through selective attention of the planners versus material- and context-bound perception of the untrained users. 2. The "general framing hypothesis" (GFH) postulates typical framing and distraction effects of all simulation techniques affecting experts as well as non-experts.

The experiment showed that -counter-intuitive to expert opinions- framing and distraction were prominent both for experts and lay people (= GFH). A position effect (assessment interaction of CAD and endoscopy) was present with experts and non-experts, too. With empirical evidence for "the medium is the message", a more cautious attitude has to be adopted towards simulation products as powerful framing (i.e. perception- and opinion-shaping) devices.

How is the research situation? Using several standard research data banks, the author collected articles and book(chapter)s on architectural psychology in German- and English-language countries from 1990 to 1996. Studies on main architecture-psychology interface problems such as user needs, housing quality evaluations, participatory planning and spatial simulation / virtual reality did not outline an “old, settled” discipline, but rather the sketchy, random surface of a field “always starting anew”. E.g., discussions at the 1995 EAEA-Conference showed that several architectural simulation studies since 1973 caused no major impact on planner's opinions (Keul&Martens, 1996). “Re-inventions of the wheel” are caused by a lack of meetings (except this one!) and of interdisciplinary infrastructure in German-language countries (contrary to Sweden or the United States). Social pressures building up on architecture nowadays by inter-European competition, budget cuts and citizen activities for informed consent in most urban projects are a new challenge for planners to cooperate efficiently with social scientists. At Salzburg, the author currently manages the Corporate Design-process for the Chamber of Architecture, Division for Upper Austria and Salzburg. A “working group for architectural psychology” (Keul-Martens-Maderthaner) has been active since 1994.

The paper discusses furthermore various 3D modeling options, such as standard CAD representations, high quality rendered video walk-throughs, VRML models and physically produced, full-scale models, made of corrugated cardboard. The cost and equipment requirements necessary for full-scale modeling in cardboard are outlined.

The possibilities of computer simulation also extend to issues inadequately covered by normative analysis and in particular to dynamic aspects of design such as human movement and circulation. The paper reports on a framework for addressing two related problems, (a) the simulation of fire escape from buildings and (b) the simulation of human movement on stairs. In both cases we propose that current evaluation techniques and the underlying design norms are too abstract to offer a measure of design success, as testified by the number of fatal accidents in fires and on stairs. In addition, fire escape and stair climbing are characterized by great variability with respect to both the form of the possible designs and the profiles of potential users. This suggests that testing prototypical forms by typical users and publishing the results as new, improved norms is not a realistic proposition for ensuring a global solution. Instead, we should test every design individually, within its own context. The development of an affordable, readily available system for the analysis and evaluation of aspects such as fire escape and stair safety can be based on the combination of the technologies of virtual reality and motion capture. Testing of a design by a number of test people in an immersion space provides not only intuitive evaluations by actual users but also quantitative data on the cognitive and proprioceptive behaviour of the test people. These data can be compiled into profiles of virtual humans for further testing of the same or related designs.

A Real Scale Model of the basic unit was built by the students of the course Spatial Design Ability dictated by the LEE. The model was first evaluated empty and then a furnishing solution was proposed, built and evaluated. These evaluations were done by another group of students of the Faculty of Architecture and Planning using the Psychological Impressions Measuring Test (IMIP) developed by Luis La Scalea (1991). This test was designed to measure people’s psychological impressions produced by a space, and consists of a semantic differential structured by eleven pairs of opposing adjectives set on a scale of seven levels. The results of this first evaluation were analysed used to modify the prototype which was evaluated again in order to produce a final layout.

The problem resides in how realistic these Computer Generated Models (CGM) are. Moss & Banks (1958) considered realism “the capacity to reproduce as exactly as possible the object of study without actually using it”. He considers that realism depends on: 1)The number of elements that are reproduced; 2) The quality of those elements; 3) The similarity of replication and 4) Replication of the situation. CGM respond well to these considerations, they can be very realistic. But, are they capable of reproducing the same impressions on people as a real space?

Research has debated about the problems of the mode of representation and its influence on the judgement which is made. Wools (1970), Lau (1970) and Canter, Benyon & West (1973) have demonstrated that the perception of a space is influenced by the mode of presentation. CGM are two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional space. Canter (1973) considers the three-dimensionality of the stimuli as crucial for its perception. So, can a CGM afford as much as a three-dimensional model?

The “Laboratorio de Experimentacion Espacial” (LEE) has been concerned with the problem of reality of the models used by architects. We have studied the degree in which models can be used as reliable and representative of real situations analyzing the Ecological Validity of several of them, specially the Real-Scale Model (Abadi & Cavallin, 1994). This kind of model has been found to be ecologically valid to represent real space. This research has two objectives: 1) to study the Ecological Validity of a Computer Generated Model; and 2) compare it with the Ecological Validity of a Real Scale Model in representing a real space.