Javier Argota Sánchez-Vaquerizo

Carina I Hausladen, Javier Argota Sánchez-Vaquerizo, Michael Siebenmann et al.

Participatory urban planning is central to sustainable city-making, yet the technically demanding nature of such interventions often limits meaningful involvement by diverse publics. We introduce a scalable digital participation platform that embeds sustainability projects within a navigable digital twin. Citizens experience a guided virtual walkthrough with audio narration employing the method of loci and spatial anchoring to support mnemonic encoding and recall. This immersive interface is augmented by two purpose-built LLM assistants: one delivers source-grounded factual clarifications, while the other facilitates reflective discussion. We evaluated this system in a randomized controlled online experiment (N = 195) against conventional industry practices (static visualizations and text-based consultations). Results show that spatially anchored immersive presentation significantly improved information recall, which substantially shifted participants' attention from individual inconveniences to collective, community-oriented sustainability benefits. Consequently, participants provided significantly more constructive, solution-focused feedback to the (simulated) municipality. These findings establish a practical tool for cities and policymakers to foster inclusive, democratic participation in sustainability transitions.

Javier Argota Sánchez-Vaquerizo, Luis Borunda Monsivais

Traditional architectural simulations (e.g. Computational Fluid Dynamics, evacuation, structural analysis) model elements as deterministic physics-based "particles" rather than cognitive "agents". To bridge this, we introduce \textbf{Agentic Environmental Simulations}, where Large Multimodal generative models actively predict the next state of spatial environments based on semantic expectation. Drawing on examples from accessibility-oriented AR pipelines and multimodal digital twins, we propose a shift from chronological time-steps to Episodic Spatial Reasoning, where simulations advance through meaningful, surprisal-triggered events. Within this framework we posit AI hallucinations as diagnostic tools. By formalizing the \textbf{Cognitive Friction} ($C_f$) it is possible to reveal "Phantom Affordances", i.e. semiotic ambiguities in built space. Finally, we challenge current HCI paradigms by treating environments as dynamic cognitive partners and propose a human-centered framework of cognitive orchestration for designing AI-driven simulations that preserve autonomy, affective clarity, and cognitive integrity.