Space in Socio-technical Systems: Exploring the Agent-Space Relation

Socio-technical systems (STS) described in literature today rely on multiple and different interaction patterns for their characterization. With the development of multi-agent systems (MAS) and formal interaction languages, the logical modeling of STS has improved. Yet these rich ongoing approaches require perspective changes and new features. Developing within a research line on spatial urban studies, this paper takes physical space experience as a core perspective in the analysis of STS. Space experience is naturally central in human understanding and acting, and human spatial cognition provides therefore a powerful approach. This study explores the kind of knowledge that is centered on space in STS, and questions whether and how its variety can be managed and formalized. In particular, the paper explored aspects of the configuration and relationships of the agentive and spatial components of urban environments, from an STS perspective, toward possible MAS-based prototypes of decision support architectures in urban contexts.