urbanLab Magazin 2021 - Transformation

PAAD
PERSON-FOCUSED ANALYSIS
OF ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
Josep Llorca-Bofí (6)
Architects need technical and humanistic approaches to
be better understood and design architecture. This is why
PAAD is born.
JOSEP LLORCA-BOFÍ
The main task of PAAD is the study of the architectural design, with a focus on people’s perceptions,
especially in situational contexts where sound matters. PAAD’s vision is person-focused,
since architectural design covers different personal needs ranging from the basic safety needs,
well-being and comfort, communication, to the religious experiences. Moreover, it is person-focused
as long as it bridges the scientist´s and architect’s knowledge through personal vocabularies.
The visionary approach is to offer new knowledge about architect’s designs implications
on people’s perception, by passing over the specific languages of other research areas, such as
acoustics. It is the hope of PAAD that this knowledge will help the architects in their daily design
practice and, in a long term period, improve people’s life in our cities.
The PAAD research group is led by the Junior Principal Investigator Dr. Josep Llorca-Bofí and
hosted by Prof. Dr. Michael Vorländer, from the Institute for Hearing Technology and Acoustics,
at RWTH Aachen University. In 2020, PAAD was awarded one of the RWTH Junior Principal Investigator
fellowships and is funded for a period of four years starting on January 2021. The group
is constituted by the leader and Jonas Heck, PhD student.
66 HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN