Visualizing a new sustainable world: toward the next generation of virtual reality in the built environment

Nikolic, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4001-8104 and Whyte, J. (2021) Visualizing a new sustainable world: toward the next generation of virtual reality in the built environment. Buildings, 11 (11). 546. ISSN 2075-5309 doi: 10.3390/buildings11110546

Abstract/Summary

What is the future of virtual reality (VR) in the built environment? As work becomes increasingly distributed across remote and hybrid forms of organizing as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a need to rethink how we use the set of collaborative technologies to move toward a sustainable world. We propose a new vision of VR as a discipline-agnostic platform for an interdisciplinary integration of the allied design, social, and environmental disciplines to address emerging challenges across the building sectors. We build this contribution through the following steps. First, we contextualize VR technologies within the changing digital landscape and underlying tensions in the built environment practices. Second, we characterize the difficulties that have arisen in using them to address challenges, illustrating our argument with leading examples. Third, we conceptualize VR configurations and explore underlying assumptions for their use across disciplinary scenarios. Fourth, we propose a vision of VR as a discipline-agnostic platform that can support built environment users in visualizing preferred futures. We conclude by providing directions for research and practice.

Additional Information	Special Issue: Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality in Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operation and Maintenance (AECOM) Building Sector
Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/101320
Identification Number/DOI	10.3390/buildings11110546
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of the Built Environment > Construction Management and Engineering Science > School of the Built Environment > Organisation, People and Technology group
Additional Information	Special Issue: Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality in Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operation and Maintenance (AECOM) Building Sector
Publisher	MDPI
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