Environmental -

Psychology and 3-D Technology MSc

I. Sustainability, Health, and Nature

Description: Provides an overview of sustainability and the challenges we face. Emphasises social elements, people’s health, their adaptation to the environment, and their ability to support themselves in everyday life. Examines the effects of nature, green areas in urban spaces, and blue areas, and how they can contribute to improved health and sustainability.

1. Sustainability, Global Objectives, Challenges, and Solutions: 

Knowledge: Understand the concept of sustainability and global goals. Identify the global and societal difficulties we face, as well as potential solutions such as urban densification.
Mastery: Recognise the significance of this concept for the future of humanity and society in Iceland, where social sustainability is highly valued.
Ability: Identify potential to improve environmental sustainability through design, shape, and planning, including social sustainability.

2. Health, Illness, and Stress:

Knowledge: Understand what is healthy and what is unhealthy, as well as the effects of stress on health and environmental stressors. Mastery: Recognise the importance of health, illness, and stress to society and sustainability. Competence: Consider health, illness, and stress when designing, creating, and organising a sustainable environment.

3. Environmental Influence on Humans, Adaptation, and Individual Sustainability:

Knowledge: Understand how diverse environments affect people and the underlying systems. Determine people's adaptation to their surroundings, psychological rehabilitation, and restorative situations.

Mastery: Recognise the significance of adaptation and psychological recovery in relation to personal sustainability and health. Understand the concept of a healing environment and its relation to sustainability.

Competence: Be able to integrate adaptation, psychological recovery, restorative settings, and sustainability into a coherent whole.

4. Nature:

Knowledge: Recognise and comprehend the effects of nature on health, human adaptation, and psychological healing. Understand how nature-based projects affect people's experiences.
Mastery: Understand how humans interact with nature and how natural structures influence people's experiences.
Skills: Use nature for health promotion, adaptation, and restorative experiences.

5. Green and Blue Areas:

Knowledge: Understand the impact of green and blue zones on health, adaptation, and psychological recovery. Understand the significance of nature representation for urban dwellers in the twenty-first century, as well as the quality of green and blue spaces and public access to them.
Mastery: Understand how people connect with natural areas.
Competence: Use natural representations to generate healing urban environments.

II. Structure of Inquiry and Scientific Method

Description: Provides information on techniques for developing environments that incorporate data and understanding about it.

1. Basis for Data Collection:

Knowledge: Understand the principles of a systematic approach to knowledge acquisition, as well as various data acquisition methods. Understand the significance of research topics and hypotheses, as well as the purpose of hypothesis testing. Mastery: Recognise the value of knowledge gained through a scientific approach and common sense. Skills: Capable of using a scientific approach to environmental organisation and design.

1. Data Collection for Future Environments:

Knowledge: Acquire data regarding the experience of settings offered in various formats, ranging from drawings to virtual environments. Determine how the measurement of experience influences perception. Identify different research scenarios and methodologies, as well as the configuration of research tools. Mastery: Understand how representation and measurement influence people's estimation of their surroundings. Ability: Apply understanding of representation and measurement to work in environmental design and organisation.

3. Conversation with the User:

Knowledge: Understand what consultation is and the various types, including conversation, surveys, participatory design, and design installations. Determine the facts and downsides of various consultation approaches. Mastery: Understand how consulting can be a valuable source of scientific data. Competence: Integrate consulting with a scientific approach.

4. Data Processing and Presentation:

Knowledge: Understand statistical tests and significance tests, as well as how to interpret results and use them practically. Mastery: Master the fundamentals of statistical testing. Know how to conduct simple statistical tests and evaluate the findings.

III. Project A: Integration of Knowledge and Environment - Nature

Theme-based Group Project (4-5 members per group)

Students utilise materials from their surroundings. They work on psychological analyses of the environment using current knowledge and experience, data collected on people's experiences with nature, green spaces, and/or blue spaces, and outcomes integrated with scientific information. The project is presented in report form.

I. Interaction of Individuals and the Built Environment

Description: Provides an overview of how people interact with the built environment, focusing on health, adaptation, and well-being. Examines physical surroundings that have psychological and physical consequences, and how to use this understanding to create human-friendly urban environments.

1. Built Environment - Diversity:

Knowledge: Understand what environmental diversity is and why it is valuable. Learn how diversity influences adaptation, experience, and psychological recovery. Mastery: Recognise the link between diversity, perception, and well-being.
Competence: Use knowledge of the psychological impact of diversity to build healing urban environments.

2. Built Environment - Scale:

Knowledge: Understand the environment and how the height and scale of structures, as well as size scale, affect adaptation, experience, and psychological recovery. Mastery: Recognise the connection between scale, perception, and feeling.
Competence: Apply knowledge of the psychological influence of scale to the creation of healing urban environments.

3. Emotional Connection with the Built Environment:

Knowledge: Understand people's emotional connections to their surroundings and what matters to them: security, a sense of safety, and local connection. Determine the relationship between emotional attachment and psychological recovery. Know the difference between individual and group needs.
Mastery: Understand individuals and communities' various demands and relationships with their environment.
Competence: Create emotional connections through urban design, shape, and planning.

4. Built Environment and Human Life: 

Knowledge: Understand what human life is, how it is created, and how it is diminished.
Mastery: Detect environmental elements that both promote and diminish human life.
Competence: Integrate knowledge of environmental elements and emotional connections into human existence and development in urban spaces.

II. A Virtual Experience

Description: Discusses the use of digital technology to allow people to simulate man-made environments before they are built.

1. Mediated Experience:

Knowledge: Understand the fundamental notions of mediated experience. Know how to communicate the organisation and design of the environment in digital form. Determine the advantages and disadvantages of various forms of communication.
Skills: Capable of creating simple layouts and design representations using various image processing and 3D tools. Understand and select effective digital communication methods for organisations and design.

2. Use of Game Engines:

Knowledge: Learn about game engines and how they may be used to share 3D data. Identify the main characteristics of interactive media, including its advantages and disadvantages.
Proficiency: Ability to use a game development environment to express a basic world design interactively.
Competence: Understand when and how to use game engine approaches to communicate layout and design.

3. Feedback and Behaviour:

Knowledge: Understand how to measure people's experiences in a virtual world. Identify methods for gathering feedback from people as they interact with a setting. Determine how to monitor and document people's behaviour in a virtual environment.
Mastery: Ability to ask interactive questions throughout an encounter and collect user behaviour data.
Competence: Understand and apply data collected from people's interactions with the digital world.

III. Project B - Integration of Knowledge and Environment - Built Environment

Theme-based Group Project (4-5 members per group)

Students gather information from their surroundings and work with specific locations throughout the country. A 3D model of the area is generated, and basic 3D representations of structures are installed. They work on psychological analyses of the environment based on existing information and experience, collect data on people's experiences with the built environment, such as street photographs and/or squares, and integrate results with scientific knowledge. The project is presented in report form.

I. Physiology and Environment.

Description: Provides an overview of the relationship between environmental influences and physiological responses. Various bodily systems and their functioning are investigated here, among other things. Material environmental elements are explored and addressed, along with their interactions with mental and bodily factors.

1. Basic Systems and their Association with Better Health and Mental Function:

Knowledge: Understand the fundamental systems and their primary roles and interactions, such as the cardiovascular, hormonal, and nervous systems, as well as cognitive function, well-being, and improved health. Mastery entails the ability to discriminate between several systems and their functions in overall health and function. Be able to determine which system delivers the most information at any given moment.
Ability: To use knowledge of basic systems to determine which system is most important/interesting to investigate at any particular time. Be able to define, based on information, how various environmental influences can impair the function of each system, affecting function and health.

2. Measurements and Data Processing:

Knowledge: Understand the main units of measurement and the information they give. Recognize the limits and strengths of each measurement unit. Be able to describe how cognitive tests are used to determine physiological function. Mastery entails being able to discriminate between different measurements and determining which measurement is best to employ at any time.
Competence: Be able to apply knowledge to construct appropriate studies/measurements of physiological activity in a given context.

3. Weather and Lighting Conditions:

Knowledge: Understand the psychological consequences of weather, the connection between wind and recovery, and the significance of light for mental health. Understand the relationship between built-up density, wind, shading, and recovery. Mastery: Recognize the significance of wind direction and light exposure for well-being and health.
Competency: Recognize the concepts of wind and light for designing restorative urban habitats.

4. Acoustics and Air Quality:

Knowledge: Understand the psychological consequences of sound, noise, and air quality, as well as their implications for well-being and health.
Mastery: Recognize the significance of acoustics and air quality for well-being and health.
Competence: Recognize the concepts of acoustics and air quality for designing restorative urban spaces.

II. Virtual Reality Technology.

1. Technology and Equipment.

Knowledge: Know what virtual reality is. Understand the history of virtual reality technology and where it has been most employed. Understand generally how the technology works.
Proficiency: Be able to set up and operate virtual reality goggles to explore environments created by others. Be prepared to cope with the most typical technical issues that may happen when utilising virtual reality equipment. Skills include the ability to choose, set up, and use typical virtual reality equipment.

2. Environment and Interface Design.

Knowledge: Understand what technologies are available for creating worlds that can be explored with virtual reality equipment. Identify the primary requirements that virtual reality places on the construction of 3D settings. Learn about the many methods for moving around virtual reality environments, as well as their benefits and drawbacks. Identify the primary methods for presenting an interactive user interface and explain how it varies from a typical 2D interface.
Proficiency: Be able to use game development tools to construct simple 3D environments that can be explored using virtual reality technology. Be able to set up a simple interface to navigate the environment and ask questions. Competence: The ability to efficiently and comfortably present a layout or design proposal in interactive virtual reality.

3. Challenges and the future.

Knowledge: Know the key shortcomings of virtual reality technology and how they have been addressed thus far. Understand what simulation sickness is, how its effects are assessed, and how to create an experience that reduces the likelihood of sickness developing. Learn about the future of technology and what advancements are on the horizon. Understand the advancement of technology and the creation of virtual reality solutions for the general population.
Mastery: Be able to identify the primary risk factors for a virtual reality project. If flaws are discovered, solutions can be proposed.
Competencies: Capable of implementing or developing a plan for the deployment of virtual reality technology in planning and design processes where it is most relevant. 

III. Project C: Research and Exploitation I

Theme-based group project (4-5 members per group)

A 3D model of the actual site has been developed, providing an unusual viewpoint on design and layout. The findings of tasks A and B may influence the environment selection process. The setting is transformed into an interactive virtual reality with many natural elements included, such as ambient noise, light, and weather. A study question is developed, a research format is chosen, and a data collection interface is created in virtual reality. A set of participants test the study's implementation (pilot). The first data will be processed, and the research will be reviewed, both in terms of its scientific worth and practical usefulness.

I. The Indoor Environment and the Conversation

Description: Provides a fundamental understanding of how people interact with their indoor surroundings, with an emphasis on health and well-being. Examines material factors with psychological and physical consequences, and how to apply this knowledge to create human-friendly environments. Additionally, it discusses the distinction between scientific knowledge in environmental psychology and the art of persuasion in presenting ideas.

1. Indoor Environment - Workplaces:

Knowledge: Understand how people interact with their surroundings in the workplace, including adaptation, experience, and psychological recovery.
Mastery: Broadly understand whether design considers psychological demands and promotes wellness.
Competence: Design, create, and organise work settings based on people's psychological requirements and behaviours.

2. Indoor Environment - Healthcare Facilities: 

Knowledge: Understand how people interact with their surroundings in healthcare settings, including adaptation, experience, and psychological healing.
Mastery: Broadly understand whether design considers psychological demands and promotes wellness.
Competence: Design, construct, and organise environments within health facilities based on people's psychological needs and behaviours.

3. Indoor Environment - Schools:

Knowledge: Understand how people interact with their environments in schools, including adaptability, experience, and psychological recovery.
Mastery: Broadly understand whether design considers psychological demands and promotes wellness.
Competence: Design, create, and organise educational environments based on people's psychological requirements and behaviours.

4. Conversation - Presentation:

Knowledge: Understand the distinction between evidence-based knowledge in environmental psychology and sales psychology. Learn how presentations influence people's evaluations and what is required to achieve a common understanding among stakeholders.
Mastery: Be able to discriminate between scientific knowledge of human-environment interactions and persuasive sales techniques.
Competence: Maintain a critical discussion when confronted with future scenarios.

II. Project D: Research and Application II

Independent final project (4-5 individuals/group)

The programme's final project is an autonomous group project where students work together to select a topic based on their interests and potential workplace applications. Students are encouraged to effectively use the extensive knowledge they have gained throughout their studies, as well as to build on previous project results. In addition to previously used approaches, new options will be presented. For instance, students may construct an interior environment that allows for the analysis and research of interactions between indoor and outdoor spaces. This can provide intriguing insights into design and organisation, as well as the differences between indoor and outdoor environments. The project environment is planned to be set up in interactive virtual reality, enabling students to implement the aspects they wish to explore. The project steps include developing a study question, choosing a research format, selecting an appropriate research methodology, and creating a Data collection interface. A group of participants will test the study's implementation (pilot). The initial data will be analysed, and the research will be evaluated in terms of scientific value as well as the practical applicability of the findings.