Take Part Prototype: Creating New Ways of Participation Through Augmented and Virtual Reality [in press]

Famous examples like the Amazon headquarter in New York City or the Stuttgart 21 train station demonstrate that construction projects are often subjects of common interest and can therefore produce protests if citizens feel unheard in urban planning. In this manuscript, we would therefore like to investigate whether e-participation can be used as a tool to foster citizen involvement in construction projects that are of public interest. To this end, we present a prototype that combines participation with augmented and virtual reality. While offering a source for a better understanding of construction processes, our prototype allows users to bring in their own design suggestions and discuss these with others. With this prototype paper, we thus want to demonstrate how augmented and virtual reality can lay the ground for innovative ways of political participation that would offer great potential for project initiators and citizens

Combining e-Participation with Augmented and Virtual Reality: Insights from a Design Science Research Project

When it comes to construction projects, public debates and protests may arise if archi-tectural plans remain unshared with the citizens they might affect. To involve the pub-lic affected by construction projects, offering easily graspable visualization for citi-zens is key. E-Participation provides opportunities to include technological innova-tions that help to inform the public and offering diverse feedback mechanisms. We de-sign and evaluate an e-participation application that uses augmented reality and vir-tual reality technology to let citizens participate in the development of public con-struction projects. Following the design science research approach, we put forward a set of meta-requirements and design principles for the development of an e-participation application using these technologies. Furthermore, we present insights into what forms and levels of participation citizens and initiators are interested in, when it comes to the use of augmented and virtual reality for e-participation, and thereby explore the potentials of these technologies for public participation