Assessing the building spatial design from fire evacuation perspective by integrated BIM and VR technology

Description

Indoor wayfinding is a critical aspect of fire evacuations and is significantly affected
by the building layout features. Existing research has focused on the topological
parametric evaluation of building layouts and investigated the impact of building
layout features on route choice and exit selection. However, these studies
overlooked the impact of layout features on wayfinding process in terms of human
cognitive and behavioural responses. Therefore, this project proposed a method to
investigate the building layout features on the wayfinding process by integrating
Building Information Model (BIM), Graph Theory (GT) and Virtual Reality (VR)
technology. BIM provides accurate geometric and semantic data, GT enables a
systematic parametric evaluation of evacuation routes, and a VR-based platform
offers human-environment interaction and collects evacuation behaviour and eye
movement data. This project introduced two cognitive load-related metrics by
integrating behavioural and eye movement data and GT-based parameters, enabling
the calculation of cognitive load distribution across various areas and identifying
critical layout features that significantly affect the cognitive load during wayfinding.
The findings of this work demonstrate that building layout features significantly
impact attention allocation and evacuation behaviour during the wayfinding process.
Following that, recommendations are provided to assist building designers in
improving fire evacuation efficiency. This study provides a novel cognitive load
measurement considering human behavioural data and parameters, and offers a
comprehensive evaluation of building layout design, contributing to supporting
designers in building design assessment in terms of fire evacuation efficiency.

Period	1 Nov 2025 → 1 Jun 2026
Examinee	Rong Fu
Examination held at
Degree of Recognition	International