Virtual reality, or VR, has had many lives. Expensive and clunky, VR, whose goal is creating an immersive spatial experience from data, never gained a foothold outside of academia, the military, or specialized industries. However, in the past few years, VR has reemerged as a way of developing and exploring proposed environments by architects, builders, and clients. 

Today’s VR is comprised of three fundamental elements that can be traced back to flight-simulator research from the late 1960s: a virtual environment, a prop to affect that environment, and a digital display to view it, says Jeff Jacobson, CEO of ConstructionVR. He adds that, in its current incarnation, VR combines hardware advances spurred by smartphones with the software developments of the gaming industry, making it an accessible and surprisingly practical platform for design practice.