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It is common for landscape architects to organize collaborative workshops to present design suggestions and collect feedback from stakeholders. Increasing attention has also been paid to VR as part of such set-ups, although mainly by the academic community. In this chapter, we suggest that practitioners lack knowledge on how to produce, operate, and implement VR technology in collaborative settings throughout planning and design stages, which has prevented it from being adopted in practice. We share our learning experiences and considerations regarding the use of VR technology in two participatory set-ups: an on-site mobile VR experience and a collaborative workshop.

Evensen, K.H.; Nordh, H.; Hassan, R.; Fyhri, A. Testing the Effect of Hedge Height on Perceived Safety—A Landscape Design Intervention. Sustainability 2021, 13, 5063. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13095063 Access to safe, green urban environments is important for quality of life in cities. The objective of this study is to explore the impact of a safety-enhancing landscape design measure on visitors’ experiences in an urban park. Additionally, this paper combines the use of field and virtual reality (VR) experiments, contributing methodological insights into how to evaluate safety measures in green space management and research on perceived safety. In a field experiment (n = 266), we explored whether the height of a hedge along a pathway influenced perceived safety among users. The field study showed that cutting down the hedge improved the perceived prospect of the immediate surrounding areas for female users, which again made them feel safer in the park. We developed a VR experiment for an evening scenario in the same environment (n = 19) to supplement the field study and test the effect of the intervention further. The VR experiment also found a gender effect on perceived safety, with females reporting lower perceived safety, but no effect was shown for the height of the hedge. The results in this study show that environmental attributes such as perceived prospect and concealment should be considered in the design and management of urban green spaces. Additionally, this research demonstrates an approach to conducting field experiments to test the effects of actual design interventions and then further developing these experiments using VR technology. Further research on perceived safety in outdoor spaces is needed to make use of this combined method’s potential.

Visual appearance of the built environment contributes to psychological affect and influences subjective well-being. However, little is known on how residents perceive and experience the visual appearance of global contemporary trends in architecture and urban design. This paper evaluates environmental perceptions and affective appraisal of contemporary versus traditional styles in architecture and public space. A recently-developed research method in this field of study is employed: panel evaluations of 360-degree videos of real environments, viewed with mobile-based virtual reality platform. The examined urban spaces are streetscapes and public squares. Results suggest that contemporary architectural styles – inspired by postmodernism and characterized by asymmetry, lack of ornamentation, and industrial appearance – are evaluated less positively than traditional styles – characterized by symmetry and ornamentation. Contemporary architecture scores lower in environmental perception than traditional architecture. This finding poses critical questions on current trends in architectural styles and subsequently on the livability of new built environments. Further research is necessary to obtain a more in-depth understanding of how the detailed physical characteristics of architecture contribute to perceptions and emotional well-being.

This study aims to introduce Virtual Reality (VR) techniques as a tool to develop an interactive environment for cultural heritage sites in Palestine; these sites have their own specific problems and challenges, which have significantly affected most of the existing sites and cause their continuous deterioration. The virtual replicas of these sites and landscapes can act as a medium for their preservation, documentation, interpretation and intervention, assisting in education, tourism and an increase in public awareness regarding their significant value. For this purpose, Hisham Palace in Jericho was chosen as a case study. The historical layers of Hisham Palace were studied and visualized using advanced 3D visualization techniques by applying a five-step approach to analyze and model different elements of the palace to assemble them at a later stage. This approach was implemented due to the critical condition of the physical remains and the insufficient literature on the history of the palace. As a result, a initial 3D virtual reality model was obtained, presented and discussed in a 3D immersive environment at the Virtual Reality Lab (VR Lab) at Birzeit University.