Unreal Engine is helping real estate developers to accelerate urban master planning

One company that is using Unreal Engine to develop immersive master planning assets is V2i Realtime, a creative studio and software developer based on Australia’s Gold Coast. V2i Realtime has decades of experience in property consulting and is now using real-time technology to give decision makers the confidence to make the necessary calls.

Accelerating pre-concept planning

V2i Realtime uses a large portfolio of tools, consolidating all project data into a single interactive 3D environment, and providing project stakeholders with the ability to freely explore the virtual project from any device with a web browser via Pixel Streaming. The idea is that a common visual language cuts down on confusion, errors, and misinterpretation, making it easier for all involved to understand a proposal, and empowering them to ask more informed questions and make better decisions. While enabling the unconstrained exploration and control of the 3D scene with an easy-to-use interface is the main focus, other communication collateral ranging from 8K cinematic perspectives and 4K animations to 360° panoramas and VR experiences, can also be generated with great speed.

The company switched to Unreal Engine after using traditional visualization software and huge render farms, which proved to be expensive and time-consuming. “Unreal Engine has been the most transformational industry tool that I've seen in 37 years,” says Luke Brannelly, Founder, Managing Director, and Creative Director at V2i Realtime. “It eliminates so much wasted time, energy, and dollars that we often see as a result of the need for third-party interpretation of traditional, and often technical, 2D data and reports. Unreal Engine enables the decision maker, or indeed anyone, to understand an outcome through the creation of a common visual language that all involved in the process can understand.”

This kind of digital storytelling is helping V2i to make the complex planning processes across the entire lifecycle of a project faster and more efficient. “It brings a smile to my face when I sit in meetings and witness firsthand how quickly people can understand an outcome and have informed conversations leading to faster, more informed decisions,” says Luke. “We can now move through a process that traditionally might have taken hours, days, or even weeks in a matter of minutes on some occasions.”

Communicating size and scale

Showcasing the support that V2i Realtime’s approach gives to the early planning stage is its work with real estate and investment group Lendlease. V2i Realtime worked with Lendlease on the Figtree Hill project, the first precinct of a new community in south west Sydney, Australia. Boasting 1,700 new homes, the development is focused on sustainability, comprising smart homes that run on 100% renewable energy.

“We have many years of approvals ahead of us, and I have no doubt that a real-time immersive collaboration environment will greatly assist with these various stakeholders understanding the vision and the design outcomes that are intended for Figtree Hill,” says Paul Melrose, National Product and Place Manager at Lendlease Communities. “We see V2i Realtime also enabling us to connect to a broader audience and to provide a much more immersive and meaningful online or mobile experience in terms of understanding the benefits of our community and, importantly, closing the sale faster.”

As well as helping Lendlease to move through the design and consultation phases in a more efficient way, the Figtree Hill project acts as a showcase to build support and understanding for this next frontier of real-time virtual collaboration, decision-making, and improved customer engagement.
 

One Cityscape Digital client that had to conquer these challenges was developer British Land, specifically in relation to its £4 billion ($4.9 billion) Canada Water redevelopment on South East London’s Rotherhithe peninsula. The 53-acre project involves the creation of a new urban hub in an area that was historically a network of working docks and canals connected to the River Thames. The project encompasses 40 new buildings along with 51,000 square meters of leisure and cultural space. The Canada Water development was master-planned by Allies and Morrison and led by Roger Madelin at British Land, in partnership with Southwark Council.

Enabling flexible and effective engagement 

The key challenge here was to showcase a 15-year development timeline for a large and complex development in an engaging and effective way. Using Unreal Engine, Cityscape Digital created a bespoke interactive platform that includes renders, videos, and applications such as the phasing tool. The latter helps to explain the diversity of Phase I, and the ongoing master plan.
 
“Unreal Engine enabled Cityscape Digital to create a flexible toolset and range of visual and interactive collateral to help British Land to engage with stakeholders in a way that was not previously possible,” says David Munro, Senior Consultant at Cityscape Digital. “The phasing tool that we built is a great example of how Unreal Engine can be harnessed to facilitate flexible and effective engagement, taking complex sets of data and presenting them in an easy to understand way.”

Morean and Urban Beta

Another innovative approach to urban planning comes from Berlin-based studios Morean and Urban Beta. Morean works across a number of industries, with a strong focus on showcasing urban master plan visions using cutting-edge creative technologies. Morean is collaborating with spatial innovation studio Urban Beta to develop the Beta Builder digital planning tool, which is designed to make urban master planning more efficient, collaborative, and fun.

“The configurator was designed for playful and efficient planning,” says Philipp Eckhoff, Founding Partner at Morean. “It aims to eliminate planning errors, anticipates building costs, and creates production data. It also creates a photorealistic understanding of the future design in real time. The challenge was to put all these features together into one interactive and responsive application that is easy and fun to use.”
 
Acting as BetaPort’s configurator, the cloud-based Beta Builder platform uses custom algorithms for decision-making, with all data, cost, and energy consumption estimates, and even a production time forecast displayed on its dashboard. Immediate visual feedback enables stakeholders to visualize, compare, and optimize previously unseen data and processes and how they interact with one another.

Philipp calls out two features in particular: the Blueprints visual scripting system, and Datasmith, a collection of tools and plugins that enables users to seamlessly import entire scenes from a host of CAD, BIM, and DCC applications. “We were able to work on the functionality of our Blueprints, test the touch-based input, and see everything the way the user would see it, without the need to leave the software. With the help of Datasmith, importing any kind of geometry, materials, and collision objects worked very smoothly. Unreal Engine made the entire process very efficient,” he says.
 
Beta Builder enables Urban Beta to design its BetaPorts smoothly and cost-efficiently. Not only is Beta Builder automated for quick decision-making, it’s also detailed enough for production and assembly data.
 
These projects demonstrate how integrating real-time technology from the very start of the urban planning pipeline can streamline the process. Bringing project data together into a single interactive 3D environment helps to communicate urban master plans more efficiently, so that construction can begin without delay.