Campus Science Building

This campus project had successfully implemented immersive tools: 360° panoramas and VR headsets into the design process – not as marketing material, but as instruments of understanding.

The scale and spatial diversity of the project demanded more than conventional representations. A network of courtyards, gardens, circulation paths and gathering spaces formed a cohesive living environment, shaped by topography and organized to foster community. While drawings and still images conveyed intent, they could not fully communicate how spaces unfold, how grades shift, or how landscape and building meet. The introduction of 360° visualizations addressed that gap. Standing within a virtual courtyard, users could look up, turn around, and understand proportion, materiality, and openness in ways that a single perspective could not deliver.

The use of VR headsets further advanced this notion of presence. Clients and stakeholders were able to enter student lounges, peer through resident rooms toward the campus lawns, or walk beneath tree canopies integrated with the architecture. Decisions that previously required explanation such as the transition from public circulation to intimate communal space—became self-evident once experienced at human scale.

It also served a technical function. VR allowed the design team to examine scales, refine lighting strategies, test visual permeability, and evaluate the character of material surfaces under different lighting conditions. The web hosted 360° workflow was iterative—render, review, adjust, and render again – allowing the virtual environment to evolve alongside the architectural model.

Work completed at Deborah Berke Architects (2022).
Visualization