TI Virtual HVAC Tour

Overview:  

Mechanical systems of buildings are expected to become more complex as we work towards sustainability with new technology that supports energy savings and better indoor air quality. As building mechanical systems are upgraded to meet sustainable targets, another key factor in meeting UCalgary’s climate targets is the behaviour of building occupants. Therefore, it is beneficial for occupants to learn more their built environment so that they can contribute to improving the building’s performance. 

Two Master of Engineering students, Winson Say and Sumiran Rao, and their supervisor, Dr. Simon Li, developed and tested a virtual reality tour of the Taylor Institute’s mechanical systems on campus with the purpose of demonstrating and evaluating how virtual reality (VR) technology can better support occupants in understanding their built environment. They recognized that while our campus community spend a significant amount of time within UCalgary buildings, we do not necessarily know how the heating, cooling, and ventilation services work in our occupied spaces.  

The Office of Sustainability offers tours of campus buildings to supplement learning of green buildings and responsible resource management. Staff time, capacity, and participant access are access constraints, and a VR tour also poses a potential scalable solution for broader campus community access.  Winson Say and Sumiran Rao were supported in their project through the Office of Sustainability’s Campus as a learning Lab initiative, which provided floor plans, HVAC schematics, and specialized staff knowledge and testing to develop the virtual reality model.  

Outcomes:  

Once the tour was developed the authors tested the VR tool on 34 participants who responded highly on a five-point scale that they appreciated the virtual tour experience (4.3/5) and considered VR appropriate for understanding a building (4.2/5). On May 2, 2024, these students and Dr. Simon Li published in the Journal Buildings. They recognized that this tool is a first step toward developing a VR experience to support teaching and learning of HVAC systems on campus. 

Publication 

Li, S., Say, W., & Rao, S. (2024). Development of Virtual Tours for Understanding the Built Environment of an Educational Building. Buildings. 14(5):1291. DOI: 10.3390/buildings14051291

Next Steps:  

Future renditions of the project plan to use H5P (an interactive website tool) to make the virtual tour experience even more accessible to students as access to VR headsets is a limitation. Participants in the study responded with weaker post-tour test scores than expected and learning of HVAC content learning of HVAC content is an aspect that needs strengthening and will be explored further in the future.