Architectural Visual Perception Lab (AVPLab)

Background

Associate Professor Dafna Fisher-Gewirtzman is the head of the AVPLab. Currently she is the Chair of the Architecture program at the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning at the Technion – IIT. In addition, she serves as the Academic Director of the VizLab, the visualization laboratory where she teaches advanced design courses and conducts experiments using Virtual Reality systems.

Dafna’s academic life is driven by her belief in a sustainable, vibrant, and healthy environment, and therefore strive to combine the areas of academic activities in order to generate synergy among them while engaging in significant doing that will ultimately heighten quality of life. She achieved international recognition for her research in visual analysis and simulation of urban and architectural space related to human perception and behavior. These studies centered on sustainable built environments in dense cities, and the development of novel, automated architecture design tools based on potential residents’ perception of space. She is currently expanding these studies, integrating body and brain measurements to extend the understanding of how architecture impacts human emotions and well-being as well as interdisciplinary research focusing on developing design guidelines for improving wayfinding and mobility of older people.

Research focus:

• The aging brain: Architectural Design principles that aid Wayfinding in older adults. Focused on interior and exterior public spaces.

Collaboration with Dr. Maayan Merhav, a Postdoc researcher at the lab.

Testing the navigational performance of younger and older adults in sets of virtual environments to reveal how architectural designs influence wayfinding among the aging. We aim to develop architecture guidelines and a parametric model based on these guidelines, for improving the mobility of older people in both indoor and outdoor public spaces.

• The Perfect Design For urban dwellers Endorsed by Neuroscience. (JOY ventures)

Collaboration with Prof. Simon Shamay Tsoory (Haifa University) and Arch. Eran Chen (ODA) with Naama Zur.

Interdisciplinary research incorporating Architecture, urban design and Neuroscience aspiring for the wellbeing of urban dwellers. Experiments in virtual reality. This research aims at understanding the impact of alternative architecture settings at different scales on human emotions and perception. The objective is to apply the scientifically ratified results as design guidelines for improvements of existing urban settings and for better future design.

• User perceptions modeling and 3D Visual structure analysis of building envelopes in dense urban environments. (Israel Science Foundation)

Developing Visual and Spatial Quantifiable analysis and simulations of human perception in multiple scales of the built environment: from the minimal dwelling unit through clusters to a neighborhood scale.
Developing automated design tools based on design concepts confirmed by experiments in a controlled VR Lab. Geometry optimization based on visibility and crowdsourcing evaluations.

• Integrated visual analysis and modeling for environmental and urban systems regarding interior space layout and functionality. (Israel Science Foundation)

Developing integrated analysis and modeling for environmental systems referring to interior space layout and functionality: integrating advanced Spatial Openness Index (3D visibility analysis) within realistic geovisualized Geographical Information (GIS) environments, and assessment against subjective residents’ evaluation.