黑料福利网

The UBeX lab was set up with the support of the Boost innovation fund of the 黑料福利网. In the lab we develop eXtended Reality applications to mimic the behaviour of people in cities. The results are used in education and research to improve participatory urban planning and design.

UBeX lab aims to transform urban planning and real estate education through the integration of the cutting-edge eXtended Reality (XR) technologies. The project is a collaboration within the Urban Systems & Real Estate unit of department of Built Environment. It spans four courses and a graduation project. Through the lab, future engineers will learn next generation skills allowing them to integrate XR into participatory urban planning, urban experiments as well as modelling and prediction of citizens behaviour in various urban contexts.

The lab setup includes advanced hardware and software, with which XR environments and challenge-based assignments are created procedurally, so that they can be easily re-used and expanded by the students. Over three years, the lab will run multiple pilot projects, aiming to enrich education, boost student engagement, and provide teachers with innovative tools for course development.

The project aspires to transform how urban planning and design are taught, aligning with the 黑料福利网 Education Vision 2030. It emphasizes research- and challenge-based learning, preparing students for complex societal challenges in mobility, housing, and environmental sustainability. The innovation targets incremental changes in teaching methodologies and learning outcomes, such as mastering XR technology, conducting participatory design experiments, and translating behavioural data into actionable urban policies. Ultimately, the project aims to foster a dynamic, future-oriented learning environment that bridges academic theory and practical application.

2 July 2025 Contribution to Dutch XR day - MYOS Make your own street

Our young UBeX lab greatly enjoyed contributing to the Dutch XR day 2025 on 2 July. We proudly showed the MYOS Make-Your-Own-Street tool. With MYOS, researchers quickly and automatically generate customizable virtual reality streetscapes, that mimic real Dutch streets. This saves our students and colleagues valuable time, that they can spend on the actual research and education, instead of tedious VR modelling. Many thanks to all the visitors of our stand for their interest and tips, and to the SURF XR and Erasmus University Rotterdam for organizing a wonderful day. On the photo Dennis Andreoli; Ioulia Ossokina; 葮tefan B卯rc膬 at our stand.

2 February 2025 Two first pilots successfully run

• In Master course Smart Healthy Urban Environments, the assignments about Green city and Social & Inclusive City introduced the VR technology and showed how to use it to measure preferences for green spaces and for citizen participation.

• In Master project Housing portfolio management, a challenge requires students to set up a participatory experiment for a community of social tenants, to figure out the support for renovation plans. XR environments were added as a tool to increase the realism of the experiment.

Students participated in both pilots with great enthusiasm; attendance and engagement reached 100%. At the moment, evaluation of the pilots is ongoing, to derive learnings for the next pilots to be run.

• Stefan Birca
• Franek Halwa
• Balazs Pelok