The primary goal of most architectural design projects is to create environments that effectively support and sustain human living. Achieving this requires understanding how we engage differently in different environmental conditions, resulting in various patterns of situated action. By integrating knowledge and methods from cognitive and behavioral science with new advanced technologies such as virtual reality, architects can enhance their understanding of the environment-behavior dynamics, which has the potential to advance architectural practice. Rethinking architectural education through this perspective may contribute to bridging the gap between architectural practice and available technological and scientific tools. This paper presents a pedagogical experiment focused on these aspects. The course aimed to familiarize architectural students with human-centered approaches and the use of game engines as digital tools for empirical design inquiries. Additionally, it introduced students to experimental designs, hypothesis testing, data collection, visualization and interpretation.