Virtual Reality for Enhanced Urban Design

The application of virtual reality to cultural heritage, environment, and landscape planning is extremely useful to experiment various scenarios which could not be necessarily realised in the real world; both for educational and research purposes. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how 3D representations can be utilised as a valid support for urban planners and designers in order to verify beforehand a variety of interventions or modifications for a particular area, and to establish the best strategy in order for the later to be reclaimed and re-qualified. We describe a research project concerning the colour planning in urban environment, held in cooperation with the urban furniture department of Milan City Council; the main goal was to collect the chromatic data of urban furniture inside a sample area in the historical centre of Milan and to use virtual reality to evaluate the proposed actions. In order to verify the aforementioned process, we have decided to create a model of Piazza Cordusio which is situated in the historical centre of Milan