This is Dr. Fang Xu’s personal website about real-time communication and simulation methods in architectural and urban design.

Dr. Xu is concerned with person-environment relationship research and the systematic integration of research knowledge into design practice. His environmental research interests include dynamic visual perception, social use of spaces, and evaluative socio-psychological meanings (e.g., territorial meanings regarding identities and social rules).

He advocates a transactionalist research epistemology, considering a reciprocal, ecological relationship between humans and the built environment the foundation for describing and understanding various person-environment phenomena. Methodically, he adopts qualitative and mixed methods research. He actively develops digital automation techniques for the collection and analysis of empirical and simulated environmental research data.

His digital simulation investigation explores the frontier of simulation-based user pre-occupancy evaluation (PrOE). In recent years, Dr. Xu has been promoting course-based public interest design (PID) that highlights the extraction and utilization of urban residents’ experiential environmental knowledge in community-participatory design initiatives. He recognizes interactive digital simulation technologies as valuable means for enhancing designer-user communication and evaluation of user performance in the design thought process.