Features of agents’ spatial knowledge in planning open spaces. A pilot study

Spatial environments have been largely studied over time, under different perspectives. Under a cognitivist perspective, they represent knowledge-intensive, meaningful spaces and entities that human agents relate to and adapt during their existence. The comprehension/identification of space fundamentals by human agents can be of great interest in strategic planning, in that they may represent structures, pillars, invariant, resilient characters of the environment, on which to build/plan the layout and development of regions and towns. The role of spatial cognition is often expressed through tacit or implicit aspects, made of perceptions, emotions, sensations relating to space, difficult to identify but characterizing the environment explored in a fundamental way. As a matter of facts, these are fundamental elements towards effective planning strategies and environmental decisions. In particular, this work investigates these aspects of spatial knowledge in agents moving in spaces with reduced - in particular extremely reduced – population. In fact, these are apparently unstructured contexts with respect to settlement areas, where aspects concerning sensations can represent essential spatial variables in terms of structuring and interpreting spaces..