Engineers at MIT have created an interactive online platform designed to help architects link physical habitat features with behavioral health outcomes in extreme living environments. MIT reported that the tool, published on August 12 in the journal npj Microgravity, visualizes how layout, lighting, and interior configuration affect human emotions and social performance during long-duration space missions.
The platform, named the Human-Environment Connection and Interaction Atlas (HECIA), adapts the risk-mapping framework used by NASA. The space agency traditionally employs directed acyclic graphs to track one-way causal links between mission conditions, like distance from Earth, and physical health metrics such as cardiovascular performance or sleep quality. The research team applied this graph format to map less tangible behavioral outcomes, including stress, curiosity, fatigue, and kinship among crew members.
Mapping design to behavior
Lead author Mich Lin, a doctoral candidate in MIT’s Human Systems Lab and Engineering Systems Lab, developed the platform alongside former MIT undergraduate Lu Chen and Professor Katya Arquilla of the University of Colorado at Boulder. The team also worked with Lauren Blackwell Landon of KBR and NASA, Jeffrey Montes of the space architecture firm Different Systems, and MIT undergraduate Kara Chou.
To select relevant emotional outcomes, the researchers reviewed 87 emotions and experiences compiled in author Brené Brown’s book “Atlas of the Heart.” They narrowed the list to 14 primary outcomes relevant to isolated and confined settings, including anxiety, autonomy, nostalgia, and homesickness. The team then combined findings from aerospace literature and human factors studies to establish connections between physical architectural choices and psychological states.
Designers can navigate the atlas using forward or backward workflows. A user starting with a mission constraint such as distance from Earth can view resulting supply limits and risks like homesickness. Alternatively, a designer seeking to reduce homesickness can trace backward to identify mitigations, such as reconfigurable private spaces that encourage emotional attachment to the environment. The tool also provides research-backed recommendations, such as arranging public access paths through shared areas to promote interaction and team cohesion.
The researchers noted that the platform applies to extreme terrestrial settings, including polar research stations, submarines, oil rigs, and refugee settlements. NASA provided partial funding support for the study.
