Enhancing ‘Boundary Work' Through the Use of Virtual Reality: Exploring the Potential within Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment

Abstract

Previous research suggests a common mismatch between visual expectations and development outcomes. Is this merely a problem of poor translation of expert knowledge? Or does it also relate more broadly to the use of visualizations within practice? This paper explores the potential for virtual reality (VR) to alleviate such concerns within the formal process of landscape and visual impact assessment (LVIA). Drawing from literature on science/policy interactions, VR can be regarded as an object potentially facilitating ‘boundary work' between various actors and hopefully helping to better match visual expectations to development outcomes. Viewed through this lens, VR may enhance the translation of expert knowledge into policy arenas and have agency to encourage improved communication and negotiation between the various actors involved. The views of landscape practitioners suggest that VR has potential to facilitate such improved ‘boundary work', but only if there is a focus on credibility and legitimacy. Such a focus may limit the salience of VR to LVIA. Despite the challenges of implementation, it is argued that enhancing ‘boundary work' should be a key focus within future visualization research.

Key Words:

• Virtual reality
• practitioner perspectives
• visual impact
• boundary object

Acknowledgements

This paper was supported by Konkuk University in 2013.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In the UK, visual impact assessment is usually combined within a landscape assessment, to form a LVIA.

2. We are grateful to a referee for making this point.

3. Note that complexity here refers to the user interface rather than the level of detail used in the visualizations.

4. This low-budget context was thought to be realistic as a number of practitioners noted the financial constraints on most of their clients, who were often pressed to be able to afford photomontages.