Sense of place in immersive architectural virtual heritage environment

Virtualization of architectural heritage elements is increasingly popular as evident in some of the current published virtual heritage (VH) projects and applications. One of the important approaches that could potentially portray the richness of the architectural heritage is highlighting the sense of place. It is believed that the insertion of sense of place elements in a virtual heritage environment (VHE) would assist in the preservation and conservation of the sense of history at a particular historical site. Studies on the sensation of place in virtual environments could be linked to the ever-expanding virtual presence domain. Though the lack of examples in virtual heritage evaluation and experiments in relation to sense of place may contribute to certain setbacks, it would be feasible to analyze the techniques in relevant experiments in virtual presence evaluation. This paper presents the methods and preliminary findings from an experiment designed to evaluate the significance of virtual presence in contributing towards the sense of place experience in a VHE. The experiment is part of a larger research on establishing elements of sense of place in a VHE. Twenty participants were each requested to describe their experiences exploring a virtual reconstruction of Kampung Hulu Mosque at the historic city of Melaka using a head-mounted display (HMD). Purposive sampling method was adopted as the participants are selected from those who had some knowledge on the topic of “sense of place” either from personal or academic experiences. While quantitative methods may be considered a norm in the evaluation technique adopted in most presence research, qualitative methods similarly to those used in phenomenological investigations could alternatively offer a wider perspective in virtual environment experience especially to those within the cultural heritage domain. An in-depth semi-structured interview method was adopted as the main data collection method for the experiment along with the “think aloud” method. In the “think aloud” method, participants are required to provide their commentary concurrently as they explored the VHE. For the purpose of data organization, the findings are broadly organized based on the categories of real place dimensions by Turner and Turner (2006). The categories are based on the physical attributes, activities, meanings and affects, social interactions and immersive device factors. Participants' responses were analyzed and discussed using content and thematic analysis adapted from similar studies in virtual presence and sense of place. Preliminary findings indicated that a fully immersive setup does immediately trigger a “sense of being somewhere” but would not necessarily suggest a sense of a particular place. It also indicated that knowledge in sense of place terminology does not provide uniformity in the type of responses from the participants as sense of place is based on personal emotions and experience. Furthermore, being fully immersed does not allow particular place essence to be felt without a complete reconstruction of the intended place as noted by most participants. Lessons could be learnt from video games development which provides visually comprehensive and dynamic place environment with realistic auditory elements, interactive avatars, and informative support contents. We conclude by discussing the importance of interdisciplinary studies on the interpretation of real place elements, particularly in fully immersive architectural VHE.