Ecological validity of architectural cognition: a framework

Architects are often criticized for not using psychological evidence in design. This paper explores whether the issue lies in the relevance of this evidence for predicting behaviour, perception and cognition in unbuilt buildings. Psychological experiments often fail to mirror real-world building experiences. We introduce the Ecological Validity of Architectural Cognition (EVAC) framework, which evaluates the generalizability of experimental results to real buildings by comparing experimental participants with actual building users in behavioural, perceptual and cognitive terms. We apply EVAC to studies on perceived spaciousness to identify research gaps and suggest methods that better align with real-world building experiences.