Game Theory Application in Architectural Decision Making
Although it is easiest to see the application of game theory to situations with structured decision paths, architect Mzo Tarr, in an article on Archinect, describes how the study of game theory leads to advantageous decision making in the architectural world. When designing and constructing a building, the architect must consider the wants and desires of many groups of people – tenants, neighbors, planners, and investors all have different interests. “Architects are ‘trained to understand a client’s needs and support strategic decision-making’,” so any decision he makes should attempt have the greatest payoff for each person involved.
Tar describes an interesting situation where prior to construction of a residential building, people living on the same floor have an option to build a shared community garden space. Normally the garden space would be allocated by the designer, unbeknownst to the future tenants; however, Tar implemented a game that maximized the payout to each tenant. In order to create a larger garden space tenants have to give up a similar square footage within their own apartment. The conflict arrises because often there are tenants who don’t want a garden and want the most square footage for their own apartments and at the same time there are tenants who are the opposite. An increase in collaboration between floor mates resulted in far better results then floor mates who didn’t communicate and may have acted selfishly or selflessly.
This is one example of how the application of game theory leads to better results in designing a building. Tarr’s architectural firm also applies it to construct utility curves that help them make strategic decisions with other clients. The success of this application in a not so obvious situation indicates that there are many other situations and industries in the world that would benefit from the study of game theory.