The VR-Lab at NMBU is a facility that provides new possibilities for modelling, reconstructing, visualizing, and communicating knowledge.
It is an arena for testing and experimenting with 3D visualization technologies and ways of sharing knowledge, aiming to increase collaboration, motivation and engagement in a learning process.
Virtual Reality Lab at NMBU is used in following fields:
- Research and development
- Education
- Architectural design and landscape planning
- Public participation
- Art: The creation of artistic applications
- Reconstruction and digital heritage
- Testing of 3D visualization technolgies
- Utilization of 3D digital solution for museums
- Applications for tourism and accessibility
Contact us
We are on the ground floor of the Plant School Building:
Find us on our interactive map- Virtual Reality and Public Participation in Evaluation of Landscape Planting Design
- Computer Games as a Tool in Public Participation Processes in Spatial Planning
- Use of photorealistic illustrations to sell real estate projects in Norway
- Virtual Reality and the Landscape Architecture Design Process
- Visualizations in zoning plan. A critical discourse analysis of the significance of the visualizations in the private zoning plan proposal for Portalen in Lillestrøm
- Planning as visual service design
- Product Presentation Through CGI-Animation
- Use of visualizations in planning processes. A study of communication and understanding
- Open storm water management - Reopening of Hovinbekken and the facilitating of increased biodiversity in an urban environment
- Concept: Land use zoning plan in 3D
- BIM for landscape. From 2D to 5D. Case study Hersleb school, Oslo
- Processes and multidisciplinary communication in pre-projects with use of new technology
Contact the VR Lab leader for information on the Lab, equipment booking, prices and availability.
Ramzi Hassan, Tel: 67 23 12 83, Email: ramzi.hassan@nmbu.no
This course is for students who have mastered intermediate skills in digital tools and wish to explore new potentials and complications associated with 3D visualizations in interaction with landscape, urban planning, architecture and construction.
The course offers possibilities to work with various types of technology for design and planning which might include: 3D modelling, 3D visualizations, animation, immersive Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, 3D printing, Reality Capture.
The emphasis is on the investigation of the added values of using digital tools in design and planning scenarios for enhancing collaboration and communication. The Virtual Reality Lab (VR-Lab) offers an arena for testing and experimenting of new ways of knowledge-sharing, increasing collaboration, motivation and engaged learning.
The course is based on a combination of lectures, practice hours at a computer laboratory, excursions and group work with individual or group supervision.
The course follows one the following approaches:
- Introducing a specific digital tool with the aim to investigate its potentials in design and planning. Examples includes studying BIM for landscape, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality.
- Introducing a case study based on a real project with the aim to use digital tools and 3D visualizations to understand many aspects and problems connected it. Examples includes studying specific urban or landscape location, reconstruction of historical gardens and sites, studying the future development and potentials of a certain site.
After being introduced to digital tools and the case study, students are required to investigate the topic individually or in groups and will be asked to identify the approach that they will follow. Students would get access to the VR-Lab to test theories and aspects connected their topics. Group presentations will be scheduled to monitor the development level of investigation work and provide feedback.
At the end of the course, students or groups are expected to present the final work and hand-in a description of their work. There are possibilities that some topics that we will deal with in the course can be offered in collaboration with other courses at master level. More information is presented at the beginning of the course.
Go to the course webpage:
Advanced 3D Tools for Design and Plannning (LAD302)
News
Select publications and media

Neural Radiance Fields for Landscape Architecture.
Maximilian Schob and Jörg Rekittke. Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture, 8-2023, pp. 428-442

Landscapes between Signal and Data: Formal Identification and Analysis of Forest Clearings in Oslo through Lidar Data. Maximilian Schob and Luis Callejas. Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture, 8-2023, pp. 221-235.

Testing the Effect of Hedge Height on Perceived Safety; A Landscape Design Intervention. Evensen, Katinka H., Helena Nordh, Ramzi Hassan, and Aslak Fyhri. 2021. Sustainability 13, no. 9: 5063.

Contemporary versus traditional styles in architecture and public space: A virtual reality study with 360-degree videos. Kostas Mouratidis, Ramzi Hassan, Cities, Volume 97, 2020, 102499, ISSN 0264-2751.

Study by NMBU and UC Berkeley shows how Virtual Reality technlogy and NMBU's VR Lab were been utilized to explore livability in urban environments. Perceiving the Livable City. Cross-Cultural Lessons on Virtual and Field Experiences of Urban Environments. Deni Ruggeri, Chester Harvey & Peter Bosselmann (2018), Journal of the American Planning Association, 84:3-4, 250-262,