Programme
- 11:00 – Presentation of the trial lecture - What are the potentials and pitfalls of emergent technologies like XR and GenAI toparticipation in planning work, and how do we best conceptualise the socio-technical, democracy and social justice changes taking, or about to take, place?
- 13:00 – Public defence
Supervisors
- Jonny Aspen (AHO)
- Einar Sneve Martinussen (AHO)
Adjudication Committee
- First Opponent: Professor Rob Kitchin, Maynooth University Social Science Institute
- Second Opponent: Dr Scient Ole Smørdal, Department of Education, University of Oslo
- Coordinator: Professor Peter Hemmersam (AHO)
Thesis abstract
This multidisciplinary thesis brings together architecture, interaction design, urbanism, and governance to investigate how emerging technologies can help facilitate participatory urban planning and architectural design. Moving beyond “vizualisation,” it treats immersive media such as AR and VR as embedded infrastructures of participation—shaping how spatial information, simulated environments, and procedural authority circulates between citizens, stakeholders, and institutions when designing the built environment.
Drawing on six publications and empirical work spanning real-world case studies, practice-based experiments and workshops, technical assessments, and custom software development, the research examines how immersive participation supports engagement and decision-making across planning and design stages. It simultaneously identifies barriers to wider adoption, including technical instability, organizational readiness, and misalignments between technological ecosystems, participatory intentions, and institutional procedures. The thesis thus develops the inter-layer fragmentation hypothesis to explain breakdowns across technical, organisational, and governance layers.
Based upon these findings, the thesis develops a Seven-Stage Process Heuristic, a refined Onion Model for tool-last selection, and a Digital-to-Physical Outcomes Protocol. Together, these contributions propose modular policy and interoperable workflows that can allow participatory data to pass through institutional interfaces without losing original intent. Ultimately, the thesis argues that AR/VR’s value lies less in sensory appeal than in legible organizational systems that can turn embodied experience into accountable decisions and built outcomes—through the continual interweaving of the virtual and the real.
Biography
Kai Reaver is an architect (SCI-Arc, 2012) and Head of Architecture (Fagsjef) at the National Association of Norwegian Architects (NAL). He works at the intersection of democratic participation, design, architecture, and technology, shaped by international practice and research, including global practice at Snøhetta (2012-2017), AR/VR research in New York (2017-2018), and through his own practice. Since 2012, he has taught internationally, including AHO, HEAD–Genève, the University of Innsbruck, and INDA Bangkok, among others. He is Chair of the Board of Directors at Europan Norway, serves as program council member and thesis assessor at NTNU, and has held board and advisory roles across academia and industry, including AHO, Mixed Reality Norway, the Norwegian Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the Danish Velux Fund, the Nordic Council, and Innovation Norway.