Abstract:

Understanding and designing future scenarios within an urban system are crucial skills for bachelor's and master's students in engineering programs related to land use planning (e.g., civil engineering or environmental engineering). These skills entail knowledge across various disciplines such as geography, cartography, and land use planning, among others. Consequently, the bachelor's and master's programs at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid incorporate training competencies in Land Use Planning, Geographic Information Systems, data processing, and mapping as pertinent competencies for its students. Scenario-building is a well-established methodology in land use and urban planning during its earliest stages. Its primary objective is to explore and anticipate strategic futures amidst profound uncertainty (e.g., land use and transport dynamics) and/or situations where the status quo is no longer viable (e.g., shifts in mobility behaviors, transportation emissions, urban sprawl, the COVID-19 pandemic). Traditionally cartography, sketches and narratives have been the main vehicles to build and communicate future planning scenarios, However, virtual reality technologies (VR) open new opportunities to simulate complex environments.

This research aims to explore the advantages of using VR technologies to depict future scenarios in urban areas within the framework of an undergraduate course for environmental engineering students at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. We believe that leveraging VR can establish an innovative interaction interface among academic staff, students, and future scenario narratives, thereby enhancing students' ability to acquire skills pertinent to planning sustainable urban developments. This hypothesis was tested through a teaching experiment involving 10 students who utilized VR to experience a future scenario narrative characterized by high insecurity levels. Three specific questionnaires were employed to capture students' perspectives regarding their background, VR experience, and perception of the narrative, respectively.

The results obtained indicate that students were comfortable using VR technologies to immerse themselves in the complexity of a future urban scenario. The majority of students recognized features of the scenario narrative that were incorporated into the VR experience. Moreover, these results have guided us in determining particular areas for improvement in this VR representation. Further studies will be conducted to substantiate these exploratory findings, involving students from various technical and social science backgrounds, such as architecture, civil engineering, or geography.

Keywords:

Urban scenarios, virtual reality, teaching engineering, land use planning.