A range of technologies, digital innovations and social policies are available for driving the energy transition. However, state of the art solutions and policy initiatives have not yet led to the needed speeding up of the energy transition. The communal uptake of available sustainable innovation in society needs boosting and municipalities are in need of more insight into citizens’ needs for reaching the set climate goals.

In this light, participatory design methods and innovative tools such as virtual reality are emerging that could potentially aid the envisioning and co‐creating of real positive change, and making the transition beautiful, sustainable and inclusive. The proposed study aims to develop and test such creative techniques and uncover and utilize their potential; support municipalities and their professionals in gaining insight into citizen needs and co‐creating the urban sustainable transition by empowering inhabitants in decision making processes and strengthening responsible ownership for a realistic ‘greener’ future. Using a research‐through‐design approach, the project conducts applied research in Latvia, Sweden and The Netherlands to identify and meet the needs and priorities of municipalities, communities and stakeholders.

This project focuses on collaboratively exploring creative imaginations using interactive media (emerging and playful technology such as VR/AR) and participatory design techniques for engaging communities and envisioning sustainable Urban Transitions.

Results

The European Union has set an ambitious objective to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, placing the energy transition at the center of its long-term strategy [1]. Despite the availability of advanced technologies, policy frameworks, and financial instruments, renovation pace remains slow. The gap lies not only in implementation capacity but also in the limited engagement of citizens. Addressing this challenge requires new approaches that connect technological innovation with social acceptance, local identity, and quality of life.

At the same time, there is a growing concern that the energy transition, if driven mainly by economic or technical reasoning, may unintentionally harm the quality of our built environment. Standardized renovation approaches can lead to gradual loss of cultural and spatial identity, reducing places to purely functional units rather than meaningful living environments. This concern is reflected in the Davos Declaration (2018)[2], which highlights the importance of sustainability, inclusiveness, and quality in shaping the built environment. This perspective reframes the energy transition as an opportunity – to regenerate urban areas and improve everyday living conditions.

Various scholars and creative technologists have shown that visual, tangible and interactive techniques can be helpful in engaging with rather abstract nature of sustainable transition [3–8]. However, its potential has not been fully uncovered, adopted, and evaluated in urban context.

The ENVISION CHANGE project was developed in response to these challenges. Bringing together partners from three European countries, the project explores how social and creative innovation can enhance the uptake of energy-efficient technologies and accelerate the transition toward carbon-neutral, livable communities. It builds on the central hypothesis that citizen engagement – when supported by imaginative, visual, and participatory tools – can significantly influence decision-making processes in urban development.

A key question guiding the project has been: how can we collectively discuss, envision, and move toward more sustainable and inclusive urban futures?

In the project we followed the bottom-up participatory approach. Rather than introducing predefined solutions, the project begins with an in-depth understanding of local contexts. Citizen needs analysis and collaborative creative methods were explored for imagining new futures in the scope of habitable, sustainable, and resilient cities. Through interviews, workshops, and co-creation sessions, residents were invited to share their experiences, needs, and expectations related to buildings, energy use, and neighborhood life. This process focused on identifying both drivers and barriers to change. On one hand, participants articulated “pains” in their current living situations – such as inefficiencies, discomfort, or lack of shared spaces – and “gains” they would expect from renovation processes, including improved comfort, aesthetics, and community interaction. On the other hand, important barriers were also identified, including fears related to construction disruptions, financial uncertainty, and the potential loss of valued aspects of existing environments. Equally important were the “comforts” of the current situation that residents wished to preserve.

This approach allows solutions to grow from community’s own priorities, ensuring that the outcomes are relevant, accepted, and truly beneficial. By working together in this way, we build trust, encourage local ownership, and create a stronger foundation for lasting change. The knowledge generated across the three pilot sites was brought together and translated into a high-fidelity virtual reality tool and a low-tech participatory mapping tool. These tools were designed to translate abstract sustainability concepts into tangible, relatable experiences.

The low-fidelity tool “Map for the Future,” designed as an accessible and creative engagement tool to facilitate dialogue between residents, local authorities, and other stakeholders about anticipated spatial and environmental transformations in in Amsterdam’s houseboat neighbourhood. The map translates complex sustainability challenges into a tangible and relatable format. Developed in close collaboration with residents, it reflects their preference for a visual and hands-on medium over technical reports or abstract policy documents. Its design mirrors a traditional geographical map but guides users through themes central to daily life: the experience of living on the water, current and future efforts to enhance sustainability in and around houseboats, and perceptions and visions of livability and neighborhood identity.

Alongside this, a high-fidelity virtual reality (VR) tool was developed to immerse users in potential future scenarios in a typical Riga neighborhood. The VR environment enabled participants to “step into” different urban configurations and directly experience the spatial and social implications of various scenarios:

• A baseline – the existing situation;
• A traditional scenario – energy driven single-building renovation;
• Block-level renovation scenarios illustrating broader urban dynamics and trade-offs.

These scenarios explore contrasting priorities: “mobility-first” – where car parking dominates shared spaces – and “livability-first”, where car presence is reduced and courtyards are transformed into multifunctional, inclusive environments. Thus, VR allows residents to critically reflect on these choices and consider the benefits of more sustainable and community-oriented lifestyles.

The VR tool was tested participants in a resident role and professionals. The results revealed an important distinction between stakeholder perspectives. Residents expressed interest in complementing the visualizations with data – costs and energy savings – indicating a desire to connect experiential understanding with practical information (data were included in the latest VR edition). At the same time, professionals, involved in advising residents on renovation processes, highlighted the unique value of the VR tool precisely because it addressed a limitation in traditional approach – a possibility to communicate spatial and experiential qualities in an intuitive and engaging manner. In this sense, the VR tool does not replace traditional data-driven approaches but complements them by enabling more holistic understanding of potential futures.

The combination of participatory processes, visual tools, and scenario-based exploration can be applied in cities facing similar challenges related to energy transition and urban regeneration. Furthermore, the modular nature of the tools allows stakeholders to tailor them according to local needs, available resources, and specific project goals.

The energy transition is not only about technologies, targets, or regulations. It is also about people – their habits, their concerns, and their ability to imagine and aim for the change.

Perhaps that is where real change begins: with shared conversations, small insights, and the moment when a possible future starts to feel just real enough to make the first steps toward it.

References

[1]        European Commission. The European Green Deal. 2019.

[2]        Davos Declaration 2018. Office fédéral de la culture, Section Patrimoine culturel et monuments historiques; 2018.

[3]        Wynes S, Nicholas KA. The climate mitigation gap: Education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions. Environmental Research Letters 2017;12:074024. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/AA7541.

[4]        Climate Change is Boring: Let’s Solve It Already n.d. https://www.wiley.com/en-us/network/professional-development/careers/sustainability/climate-change-is-boring-let-s-solve-it-already (accessed April 24, 2023).

[5]        Kanis M, Steur C, Kievit W, Versluis S, Blaauw D, Veenstra M. Using an Interactive Model for designing Public Displays. Proceedings of Geodesign Summit Europe , 2013.

[6]        Bird J, Rogers Y. The Pulse of Tidy Street: Measuring and Publicly Displaying Domestic Electricity Consumption n.d.

[7]        Houben S, Golsteijn C, Gallacher S, Johnson R, Bakker S, Marquardt N, et al. Physikit: Data engagement through physical ambient visualizations in the home. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – Proceedings 2016:1608–19. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858059.

[8]        Kanis M, Lubsen A, Witschge T, Pijls M. Engaging in (Un)Sustainable Practices: Making Data Physical in Workshop Settings n.d.