MARIA christofi
National Technical University of Athens, Architecture Engineering, Graduate Student
- Maria Christofi is an architect and researcher investigating transdisciplinary models of thinking and practicing architecture. She is a Ph.D. student at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), collaborating with professors Kotsopoulos (MIT), Bruni (AAU), and Theocharides (UCY). Maria holds an MSc in ‘Cognitive Architecture’ from the NTUA funde... moreMaria Christofi is an architect and researcher investigating transdisciplinary models of thinking and practicing architecture. She is a Ph.D. student at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), collaborating with professors Kotsopoulos (MIT), Bruni (AAU), and Theocharides (UCY). Maria holds an MSc in ‘Cognitive Architecture’ from the NTUA funded by the State Scholarships Foundation and a BSc in Architecture from the University of Cyprus (UCY). Her research explores the intersections between architecture, cognition, and computing. She investigates how our environment's perception adapts to the alterations of the built environment. Her methodology is based on a situated computing practice that investigates spatial-cognitional phenomena across different scales.edit
Recent advancements in spatial mapping and in the development of innovative software and navigational tools, have set a new technological framework within which, analogue or physical tools are transformed into digital ones. The... more
Recent advancements in spatial mapping and in the development of innovative software and navigational tools, have set a new technological framework within which, analogue or physical tools are transformed into digital ones. The integration of interdisciplinary technological resources to traditional surveying and simulating methods extends our capabilities in multiple levels of spatial analysis, i.e. the simultaneous control and modeling of environmental data corresponding to various aspects & dimensions. In such a framework, investigation of the aspects of sustainability and resilience of architectural heritage can be approached as a process of interrelating parameters and properties associated in multiple scales to spatial and geographical structures and stratifications. This study attempts to present the development of a "digital multi-parametric methodology" with which, we may rapidly, directly and reliably detect the spatial structures and their properties which comprise environments of our architectural heritage, through the case study of a complex of semi-deserted settlements in the Doris Municipality, in Greece. As for fieldwork, using the new digital media (drones, thermal cameras, etc.) as well as the analogue ones (recording + surveying typological, building and morphological data, etc.), the method originally tests the framework of the field research and its potential range, while at the same time is integrating and processing the results (of the field research) through the development of a new online digital platform. The resulting simulated spatial structure in organizational patterns, aims in decoding the unique sequences of data which identify spatial entities found in the examined settlement, as well as recognizing interactions among them. On a larger scale, the interaction of each spatial entity (object) with the broader built environment is examined, whilst in a third level the settlement itself is associated with the adjacent natural environment, its resources, and the neighboring communities, based on factors related to sustainability and resilience of the specific cultural landscape. Considering all the above, the study aims to suggest possible new innovative ways of reading architectural heritage and parameters that deem the viability and resilience over time and changes in regards with their existing state.
Research Interests:
The sensory stimuli from the urban environment are often distinguished as subtle structures that derive from experiencing the city. The experience of the urban environment is also related to the social relationships and memories that... more
The sensory stimuli from the urban environment are often distinguished as subtle structures that derive from experiencing the city. The experience of the urban environment is also related to the social relationships and memories that complete the 'urban eyescapes' and the way individuals can recall them. Despite the fact that the consideration of urban sensory stimuli is part of urban design, currently the account of visual experience in urban studies is hard to be identified. This article explores ways of recording how the senses mediate one's engagement with the urban environment. This study involves an experiment in the urban environment of the Copenhagen city centre, with 20 subjects performing a walking task. The aim of the experiment is to categorize the visual 'Bold Headlined Stimuli' (BHS) of the examined environment, using eye-tracking techniques. The analysis allows us to identify the Headlining Stimuli Process, (HSP) in the select urban environment. HSP is significantly mediated by body mobility and perceptual memories and has shown how urban stimuli influence the intelligibility and the recalling patterns of the urban characteristics. The results have yielded a 'Bold Headline list' of stimuli related to: the spatial characteristics of higher preference; the stimuli that are relevant to livability; and the spatial dimensions easier to recall. The data of BHS will be used in cross-disciplinary city analysis. In the future, these results could be useful in urban design, to provide information on how urban space affects the human activities.
Research Interests:
The rapidly expanding urban areas of the world constitute a challenge of how we need to make the transition to "the next urbanization", which will be defined by new analytical tools and new sources of data. This paper is about the... more
The rapidly expanding urban areas of the world constitute a challenge of how we need to make the transition to "the next urbanization", which will be defined by new analytical tools and new sources of data. This paper is about the production of a spatial application, the 'FUMapp', where space and its initiative will be available literally, in meters, but also abstractly, at a sensed level. While existing spatial applications typically focus on illustrations of the urban infrastructure, the suggested application goes beyond the existing: It investigates how our environment's perception adapts to the alterations of the built environment through a dataset construction of biophysical measurements (eye-tracking, heart beating), and physical metrics (spatial characteristics, size of stimuli, rhythm of mobility). It explores the intersections between architecture, cognition, and computing where future design can be improved and identifies the flexibility and livability of the 'available space' of specific examined urban paths.
Research Interests:
The strong association between computation and the built environment gives birth to new research approaches to urban design. Although these approaches enable the implementation of urban systems based on various collections of datasets,... more
The strong association between computation and the built environment gives birth to new research approaches to urban design. Although these approaches enable the implementation of urban systems based on various collections of datasets, they usually neglect human experience. To address this problem, our research identifies and quantifies spatial information and patterns of urban organization based on experience, by gathering two parallel types of user data: sensory and recollection. The presented experiment, executed in Copenhagen, Denmark with 23 participants, involves a walking task, and a recollection task. The walking task is 1 km walk from the Copenhagen Court House building to the Royal Danish Theatre through Strøget Street, while wearing eye-tracking spectacles. The recollection task includes the underlining-on a 3D photorealistic digital model-of the elements that the participants can recall from their walk. We monitor the eye movement of the participants to locally characterize the urban path by computing four spatial attributes: a) The fixations on elements (counted through iMotions Software), b) The distance from the viewer (taken by GPS points through FUMapp software), c) The position of the stimuli related to the eye-level (calculated in FUMapp), and d) The degree of spatial transformations on street intersections (through spatial variables in FUMapp). Then we compare the eye-tracking and the recollection data and we evaluate their heat maps. The originality of this research is twofold: First, for the first time a substantial amount of quantifiable optical data related to urban walking is recorded; Second, for the first time this experiment is performed on the public street. The proposed method could offer a quantifiable basis for predicting eye fixation locations, determining human centric guidelines for urban design. Additional modes of body sensors could yield even more all-encompassing body-metrics related to the urban walking experience. Abstract The strong association between computation and the built environment gives birth to new research approaches to urban design. Although these approaches enable the implementation of urban systems based on various collections of datasets, they usually neglect human experience. To address this problem, our research identifies and quantifies spatial information and patterns of urban organization based on experience, by gathering two parallel types of user data: sensory and recollection. The presented experiment, executed in Copenhagen, Denmark with 23 participants, involves a walking task, and a recollection task. The walking task is 1 km walk from the Copenhagen Court House building to the Royal Danish Theatre through Strøget Street, while wearing eye-tracking spectacles. The recollection task includes the underlining-on a 3D photorealistic digital model-of the elements that the participants can recall from their walk. We monitor the eye movement of the participants to locally characterize the urban path by computing four spatial attributes: a) The fixations on elements (counted through iMotions Software), b) The distance from the viewer (taken by GPS points through FUMapp software), c) The position of the stimuli related to the eye-level (calculated in FUMapp), and d) The degree of spatial transformations on street intersections (through spatial variables in FUMapp). Then we compare the eye-tracking and the recollection data and we evaluate their heat maps. The originality of this research is twofold: First, for the first time a substantial amount of quantifiable optical data related to urban walking is recorded; Second, for the first time this experiment is performed on the public street. The proposed method could offer a quantifiable basis for predicting eye fixation locations, determining human centric guidelines for urban design. Additional modes of body sensors could yield even more all-encompassing body-metrics related to the urban walking experience.