Design for architecture is concerned with `space': empty space, spatial structures, and the process of structuring. Spatial designers, architects, and engineers organize empty space by building-up structures and artefacts of our everyday existence and structuring transforms and organizes empty space into something of a desired form (e.g., a balanced room, a visually pleasing scene), function (e.g., easily navigable) and semantic connotation (e.g., of a `place'). Within design science and the philosophy of design in general, form, the associated utilitarian notion of function, and the relationship between the two are ontological constructs that have served a pivotal role by providing a point of interface between disparate focus groups involving users, designers, and engineers. Within the theory of architectural design in particular, conventional morphological analyses involving the elements of form, empty space, enclosure, behaviour, and function have been the fundamental underlying constructs. Whereas the philosophy of form and function is a well-researched topic, the practical relations and dependencies between form and function are only known implicitly by designers and architects. Specifically, the formal modelling of structural form, i.e., their shape, layout, or connectivity, and resulting artefactual function within design, and practical design assistance systems remains elusive. Interdisciplinary studies concerned with `language and space', `spatial memory', `spatial conceptualisation', `spatial representations', `spatial formalisations', `spatial reasoning' are extensive and enormous to say the least. However, attempts to understand the nature of creative spatial thinking and design processes for architecture within a unified cognitive and computational framework have not been given due consideration. This may be achieved from the viewpoint of dimensions such as psycho-spatial conceptualisations, visual, diagrammatic, and qualitative spatial representation & reasoning, learning for design, spatial communication, qualitative modelling & reasoning, and a specialised understanding of spatial computing for design.

Spatial Cognition is concerned with the acquisition, organization, utilization, and revision of knowledge about spatial environments, be it real or abstract, human or machine. Within spatial cognition as a discipline, research issues range from the investigation of human spatial cognition to the development of cognitive, formal, and computational models of spatial perception, modelling, and reasoning from a multi-disciplinary perspective, e.g., involving disciplines such as cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, computer science, mathematics. Cognitive scientists have developed a range of methods to gather evidence about human behaviour and cognitive processes in such environments, especially with respect to way-finding, orientation and cognitive mapping. Recent years in architectural design have seen the rise of evidence-based approaches. In this context, cognitive science can provide both experimental procedures (e.g. virtual reality experiments, agent-based simulations), expert appraisal of designs (cognitive walkthrough methods) and theoretical frameworks for such evidence-based design. One challenge for architectural designers is to anticipate the behaviour of people in buildings and urban environments, e.g., including public spaces such as hospitals, airports or offices.

Design cognition, and the study of the design process in general, are mature research areas with clearly identifiable state-of-the-art benchmarks from disciplines such as artificial intelligence, cognitive science and computer science. One crucial objective of spatial cognition for architecture design is to build on existing foundations and paradigms in the study of design cognition in general, and to identify and explore areas of synergy: what kind of insights from `spatial cognition' may be applicable to design cognition in general, and vice-versa.

In the last two decades, several interdisciplinary initiatives comprising of computer scientists, engineers, psychologists, and designers have addressed the application of artificial intelligence techniques for solving problems that accrue at several stages of the design process: design conceptualization, functionality specification, geometric modelling, structural consistency & code-checking, optimization, collaborative (design) workflow management, design creativity, and a plethora of other issues have been addressed.

Spatial computing for design is essentially concerned with developing the spatial informatics that is necessary to represent and reason about spatial structure. In particular, it is concerned with spatial structure as it exists with respect to the spatio-linguistic conceptualisation of a human, and its formal and computational characterisation within a spatial design assistance system. A crucial aim in spatial computing is to address `space' from a cognitive and formal modelling and computational viewpoint, i.e., space, as it is interpreted within the computer science disciplines concerned with the investigation of artificial intelligence and knowledge representation in general, and formal methods in spatial representation and reasoning in specific. This capability is especially useful, for instance, for analytical tools that can be used to study the relationship between the form and function of spatial structure. As s field, spatial computing for design is also characterized in two ways: firstly, by the scientific questions that it must address from a representational and computational viewpoint and their relationships to the domain of artificial intelligence & design in general, and secondly, by the outcomes that a paradigm such as this is expected to produce. As concrete products, spatial computing envisages to develop tools, systems, and frameworks for design systems that challenge contemporary technological design paradigms and practices, and steer their movement toward the desired enabling technologies of the future. The symposium aims to initiate discussions focussing on the role of spatial computing in particular, and the spatial informatics underlying spatial design assistance techniques in general, vis-a-vis their interrelations with cognitive and psychological perspectives on the process of spatial design.