Integrating virtual reality and consensus models for streamlined built environment design collaboration

Collaboration in design decision-making is a critical factor in enhancing the quality of built environments. However, several factors, such as the lack of clarity in the negotiation process, the diverse disciplinary backgrounds of stakeholders, and conformity bias, pose significant challenges, rendering the collaboration in built environment design time-consuming. To overcome these challenges and improve the efficiency of collaborative design, a novel solution that introduces a consensus model enhanced by virtual reality (VR) is proposed in this paper. The proposed model implements a structured decision-making process to foster fact-based discussions and minimize conflicts arising from personal biases. It ensures equal influence among all stakeholders, prevents the dominance of any single viewpoint, and offers personalized recommendations to guide stakeholders toward group consensus while respecting their initial preferences. The study leverages VR techniques to enhance communication and comprehension during design negotiations. The VR collaboration platform provides a robust visualization and user-friendly interface, empowering stakeholders to understand the decision-making process better and iteratively refine their preferences for optimal user satisfaction. By integrating VR, the burden traditionally placed on a moderator in group decision-making (GDM) is reduced, resulting in a more streamlined and efficient collaborative process. Additionally, stakeholders can conveniently communicate their preferences remotely through cloud services within the immersive VR collaboration environment, further enhancing the overall design collaboration experience. To the best knowledge of the authors, this study is the first attempt to combine a consensus model with VR to create a comprehensive solution that supports stakeholders in achieving consensus design solutions in the early design stage. This study contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the field of design collaboration by exploring the potential benefits of a VR-enhanced consensus model for GDM.