It was recently announced that Mojtaba Navvab, Associate Professor of Architecture, will collaborate with professors Kwoon Wong and Pei-Cheng Ku on a MCubed collaboration titled, “Virtual reality as a surrogate sensory environment for evaluation of human luminous environment.”
The portion of the research is explained on the MCubed website, is as follows:
“Light is one of the most important factors in design of architectural space, enabling us to view the shape, color and movement of objects within our surroundings and enjoy the living environments through our eyes. Architectural light also impacts our well-being by evoking a variety of ‘non-image-forming’ physiological responses, such as constriction of the pupil, synchronization of circadian rhythm, acute modulation of alertness, and regulation of hormone release.”
Navvab’s collaborators on the project are: Kwoon Wong, Assistant Professor, Department of Opthamology & Visual Sciences, and; Pei-Cheng Ku, Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Professor Navvab is a fellow member of the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America (IESNA), a recipient of five IESNA’s International Illumination Design Awards (IIDA) and the latter with several awards for daylighting research and for design input on some of the most prestigious architectural commissions of the 20th century.
Dr. Navvab’s architectural practice and research are focused on building architectural design, renewable energy sources and their optimization associated with buildings’ energy performance criteria based on the US Green Building Council and LEED Certification. His current area of research utilizes the virtual reality laboratory environment for exploration of acoustic and visual comfort as relate to human perception of color and loudness.
Visit the description of the project on the MCubed site here.
MCubed is a two-year seed-funding program designed to empower interdisciplinary teams of University of Michigan faculty to pursue new initiatives with major societal impact. The program minimizes the time between idea conception and successful research results by providing immediate startup funds for novel, high-risk and transformative research projects. The funds are intended to generate data for groundbreaking, high-impact publications, or preliminary results for new, innovative research proposals. The program also includes high-visibility, campus-wide research symposia to showcase the resulting groundbreaking research.
