New master’s thesis examines how laypeople understand zoning maps and planning visualisations.
How well do non-professionals understand what a zoning plan actually allows to be built? This question is central to the master’s thesis *Public Participation on What Grounds? Laypeople’s Understanding of Zoning Maps and Supplementary Visualisations by Ole Aarre Engesbak and Kathrine Glein Sørensen, completed in June 2026 as the final project of the five-year Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). The thesis was supervised by Elin Børrud and Ramzi Hassan.
The thesis examines the role of zoning maps, planning provisions, illustrative site plans, and perspective renderings in public participation in Norwegian planning processes. While zoning maps and their provisions form the legally binding basis for planning decisions, supplementary visualisations are often used to make plan proposals easier to understand for the general public.
Through a comparative qualitative study, the authors investigated how 18 participants without professional planning backgrounds interpreted different planning documents from a detailed zoning plan in Hovinbyen, Oslo. The participants were divided into two focus groups and presented with the documents in different sequences to explore whether the order of presentation influenced their understanding.
The findings show that zoning maps communicate spatial qualities to laypeople only to a limited extent. Illustrative site plans and perspective renderings made aspects such as spatial organisation and building height more accessible, but in different ways. The order in which the documents were presented also influenced what participants noticed and how they formed impressions of the proposed development.
A key finding of the thesis is the tension between legal authority and public understanding. The documents that people rely on most to understand what is planned are often those with the least legal standing, while the legally binding zoning map remains difficult to interpret for non-professionals.
The study raises important questions about the design and role of zoning maps in public participation, and about how supplementary visualisations should be used, communicated, and regulated in planning processes. It contributes to an important discussion on how planning documents can better support meaningful public involvement.