Ph.D. Candidate
Coming from a background of cognitive neuroscience and psychology, Saar is fascinated by the intersection of urban and architectural design with behavior. Saar is utilizing parametric modeling and agent-based models with advanced behavioral experimentation procedures from the cognitive and the behavioral sciences. In doing so, Saar aspires to extrapolate behavioral knowledge from the controlled settings of the lab to the chaotic uncontrolled context of the built environment.
Saar is developing a simulation workflow and a simulation engine to model social connectivity processes. A demographic profile of residents and a cad model of a neighborhood are the inputs for the simulation. The simulation engine generates a ‘population’ of agents simulating the residents of a neighborhood. The cad model is a parametric representation of a neighborhood’s planning alternative. In the framework of the simulation the agents ‘move’ and ‘interact’ ‘within’ the neighborhood’s 3D cad model.
This allows generating a ‘social heatmap’ on the cad model, of the spread and extent of social encounters between agents, given a planning alternative ( i.e a cad model). The behavioral models for the agents’ movement and interaction are based on behavioral experiments data. The experimental procedures utilize knowledge from the cognitive and the behavioral sciences to model as ecologically validly as possible social behavior in a way reflective of everyday conduct in an urban neighborhood.