The Urban Realities Laboratory ( formerly known as the Research Laboratory for Immersive Virtual Environments) came to life in 2006 as an entity within the Psychology Department at the University of Waterloo. Members of the lab are involved in a wide range of different kinds of studies, all of which relate to increasing our understanding of how human beings behave in the built environment. Using both mobile data collection methods in field settings and immersive virtual reality, we focus on understanding the perception of architectural forms and how they influence cognition, wayfinding, and emotion. We work at a wide range of scales from house interiors to city streetscapes.
