Public areas are increasingly populated by diverse societies. To optimally design spaces, architects and urban planners more frequently utilize agent-based models to predict how humans would behave in a pre-built environment. Yet, mispredictions arise as the mechanism that largely determines human behavior is mostly disregarded when simulating pedestrians: cognition. The ‘Empowering Cognitive Agents’ thesis project emerged from a keen interest of UNStudio, an international architecture company, to leverage agent-based modeling to shape future design choices. The project is part of the Brain and Cognition department and the Psychological Methods department at the University of Amsterdam. You can also read the full thesis paper here.