The Potential of Crowd Simulations for Communication Purposes in Architecture

This article discusses an early stage of research on the potential of crowd simulation tools for (marketing) communication purposes in architecture and urban planning. We argue that today, in architecture and urban planning, agent-based simulation tools have been primarily used for analytical purposes, such as the simulation of pedestrians or fire escape scenarios in buildings, and only rarely for the creation of videos for communication purposes, for example for marketing purposes. We found that even with the best available software tools the cost-benefit ratio for architects is not yet optimal and that architects might - from an economic point of view - today be more effective if they outsource such a task to an animation specialist.This paper is relevant for architects, urban designers, communication and PR experts and for researchers in the fields of architecture, knowledge visualization, communication science, agent-based simulations.