Experience Before Construction: An Immersive Virtual Reality Design Tool for Architectural Practice

In architectural design, understanding and communicating how a building will be experienced is an ongoing challenge. However, recent developments in Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) technology are revealing a new design representation tool capable of providing realistic experiences of computer-generated spaces. Still, the question of how such design representation tools should be designed is a subject of ongoing debate. Here we first outline potential usage scenarios and system requirements based on interviews and focus groups with practicing architects, then describe how this information was used to inform the design of a foundational IVR representation interface that encompasses these scenarios and requirements, and lastly experimentally evaluate the interface according to the system requirements outlined initially. Our findings indicate that our embodied interface provided users with an immersive experience of the space without requiring a significant investment of set up time. Finally, design lessons and future design goals of our interface are discussed.