Codesign Garden Veendam
Initiators: Dr. Clarine van Oel (TU Delft) in collaboration with Housing Corporation Acantus Lead Developer & Research Assistant: Habiba Mukhtar Platform: Multiplayer VR simulation Focus: Community participation, social cohesion, co-design in housing Duration: Two-module project (renovation + VR experiment)
The Co-Design Garden Veendam project was conceived to address a critical issue in the Veendam neighborhood of Strathbadi: a lack of social cohesion between neighbors. Initiated by Dr. Clarine van Oel in partnership with housing corporation Acantus, the project explored how virtual reality could foster communication, understanding, and shared decision-making in a neighborhood preparing for renovation.
The project was structured in two modules. The first focused on renovation — allowing residents to preview new kitchens, bathrooms, and flooring designs and provide consent through VR visualizations. The second module, however, was more experimental and innovative: a multiplayer co-design VR experience that invited neighbors to collaboratively reimagine their shared outdoor spaces.
In this simulation, up to four residents (accompanied by a guide from the research team) would enter a VR environment replicating their own garden layouts. While each participant had a private garden, the front-facing green area — a collective grass strip often used communally — became the design focus. Participants could place and move objects like benches, pathways, or plants, discussing their preferences and negotiating placements live in VR.
Acting as a kind of interactive, spatial “Sims” in VR, the application allowed each person to view the environment from their own doorway as well as from a global overview — helping visualize not only personal impact but collective outcome. The interface encouraged both casual conversation and serious alignment, asking:
“Do you like this chair?” “Where should it go?” “Would you share it with others?”
Importantly, all actions were captured through a top-down “helicopter” camera, creating a circulation map of participant behavior, object placement, and group dynamics. This enabled the research team to analyze preferences, bottlenecks, and negotiation breakdowns, even identifying when teams were unable to reach consensus — or when discussions became creatively chaotic.
The simulation didn’t result in a final garden layout, but rather in valuable behavioral data and collective design drafts. Designers could apply a filter to see what was generally liked, ignored, or debated. The result wasn’t just a layout — it was an insight into how communities negotiate shared space, and how technology can support better alignment before real construction begins.
As Habiba Mukhtar, the lead developer and research assistant, noted, the system also allowed flexibility: she expanded on an initial modular block to create multiple layout variations and guided residents through several experimental sessions. Her work turned a framework into a research-rich application.
In essence, Co-Design Garden Veendam showed how immersive, participatory technology can foster community dialogue, build empathy, and prepare neighbors for change — long before the first shovel hits the soil.