Understanding the design : A qualitative study of architecture and urban planning visualisation techniques in a public consultation setting

Abstract: Visualisation of proposed plans and designs can be done with a number of differenttechniques within the field of architecture and urban planning. But which visualisationtechnique is best suited when presenting a design proposal at a public consultation? Is therea breaking point where the user can form a general understanding of the proposed designdepending on the degree of fidelity? To seek answers to these questions a qualitative studywas conducted where five different visualisation techniques were tested on ten users toassess their understanding of a proposed design. Our findings show that there is not asingle best visualisation technique for public consultation. Based on our results thepreferred alternative would be a combination of several techniques. We could also see thatthe general understanding of a space increased until a certain degree, and after that adeeper more detail oriented understanding was achieved.