Penn, Professor Alan

Space

http://www.vr.ucl.ac.uk/people/alan/

is Professor of Architectural and Urban Computing at The Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University College London, and Director of the VR Centre for the Built Environment. His research focuses on understanding the way that the design of the built environment affects the patterns of social and economic behaviour of organisations and communities. How is it that architecture and urban design matter for those that inhabit them? In order to investigate this he has developed both research methodologies and software tools.

Current research includes the development of agent based simulations of human behaviour, the development of spatio-temporal representations of built environments, investigations of scaling properties of urban spatial networks and the application of these techniques in studies of urban sustainability. He is a HEFCE Business Fellow, a founding director of Space Syntax Ltd (a UCL knowledge transfer spin out) and a director of UCL Consultants Ltd. He chairs the RIBA's Research and Innovation Committee. He also chairs the UoA 30 Architecture & the Built Environment sub-panel for RAE 2008, and is a member of Main Panel H.