A Framework for Virtual Co-Urban Design

Abstract

Traditionally, professionals’ urban design methods and tools do not allow users to be active in the design process. On the contrary, participatory design processes build the citizen’s capacity of traditionally omitted city building procedures. The participants act as individual actors in the participatory design process, and a social hierarchy exists among them. The visual information adheres to the design artefacts used in the process stay in assumptions and leads to an unsolved conclusion with an expense of time. The article argues that immersive virtual reality equipped with producing instantaneous design artefacts and design engagement set-up brings conclusion at the early stage of an urban design process. The design task, the perceptual understanding of the virtual environment and the feeling of affiliation are the catalysts to keep the flow of the conversation. The design experts set design tasks understanding the capacity of the virtual tools and the need for the design problem. The paper presents a conceptual framework to develop a virtual tool based on participatory mindsets and principles experimented with earlier. It discusses how virtual media leverage citizens of a neighbourhood in the design process. In the end, the article puts light on the scope of using collaborative virtual reality tools on a shared understanding of collective design discussion in regenerating and developing urban spaces.