Cognitive Inhabitation Analysis: Demonstrating Cognitive-Agent Simulation in BIM-Based Architectural Space

Space gains its use from the relation between form and occupant, yet design-stage prediction has rested on form alone. This study demonstrates Cognitive Inhabitation Analysis: agents with memory, reflection and planning inhabit an unbuilt BIM school plan and the space is read from their conduct. In three days and three seeds, 36 agents left trajectories and 1,542 free-time conversations, read as five patterns: anchoring, encounter, appropriation, diffusion and adaptation. The output answered to space, occupant and time. Where form predicts, it converged with space syntax (occupancy r = 0.62, co-presence r = 0.67); where form is silent, it read further: cross-grade encounter was set by layout, not disposition, identical clusters diverged in use by grade, and bonds accumulated across days. The method thus brings inhabitation into the design stage and shows, before construction, what layout governs and what the occupant does.