We now have a Meta Quest headset in the practice. This is what it lets us do: walk through our own designs at human scale, long before the first column is poured.
A terminal, pier, lounge, baggage hall, security route or airside interface is fundamentally spatial and operational. It is judged by proportion, sightlines, flow and comfort, and none of that fully survives a plan, a section, or a model on a flat screen.
VR closes that gap. Designers, engineers, operators and clients can stand inside a proposal at 1:1, test how it actually feels to move through it, and align on decisions while they are still cheap to change.
The headset does not replace Enscape for polished client storytelling. It adds the missing dimension: spatial coordination and review inside the BIM model itself, connected straight to the project data we already manage in ACC.
From early concept to site, across architecture, BIM, terminal planning and airside. Each of these works today with the kit we have.
Our main use. Bring our own live project models into the headset and walk them as the design develops, judging proportion, volume, light and spatial quality the way they will actually be experienced, then take what you learn straight back into Revit.
design developmentAt early stage, feel the difference between massing or layout options instead of debating it on paper. The spatial choice that wins is usually obvious once you are inside it.
conceptStep into the coordinated model and catch clashes, tight clearances and constructability issues that hide in a 2D clash report. Raise an issue in VR and it syncs straight back into ACC.
coordinationWalk the journey from kerb to gate. Test sightlines, signage height and position, queue space and intuitive flow at the scale a passenger actually meets them.
human factorsPut an operator or authority inside the design. People who cannot read a section reach confident sign-off faster when they have simply stood in the room.
alignmentCheck baggage halls, security, gate lounges and airside interfaces against real working dimensions, equipment envelopes and staff movement before they are locked.
operationsAssess reduced mobility routes, ramps, counter heights, grab rails and reach zones from a seated and standing eye line, tested against the standards rather than assumed.
complianceStand in the tower cab and check controller sightlines to runways, taxiways and aprons. This is the kind of review that decides cab geometry, for example on our Uzbekistan air traffic control tower.
airside · sightlinesOur team sits together in Delft, so the review runs on the desktop while one person drives the model live in the headset and shares what they see. Everyone discusses the same space, one immersed in it, the rest following on screen.
shared reviewOur project models reach the Quest two ways: live from Autodesk Construction Cloud for coordinated review, or as a standalone Enscape scene loaded straight onto the headset. Either way, rendering happens on the device, so no high specification PC is needed.
The models we already author, living in Autodesk Construction Cloud.
Streams the model from ACC to the headset. Sentio VR is the lighter alternative for fast walkthroughs and AR.
Stand in the design at 1:1, with a live two way link to project data.
Anything you flag in VR syncs into the same coordination log the desktop team uses.
Built straight from our Revit or Rhino models, the same scenes we use for visuals.
Enscape packages the scene as a self contained standalone file.
Load it onto the headset and explore it offline, ideal for design and concept review.
Our core use. Walk terminals, piers and lounges at 1:1 to judge proportion, daylight and spatial quality as the design develops.
high fitWalk the passenger journey to test wayfinding, sightlines, signage and dwell spaces the way a traveller actually meets them.
high fitStand inside massing and phasing options at landside and airside scale, and see how terminal, apron and access fit together before the plan is fixed.
strong fitReview roads, bridges, tunnels and structures in their setting, checking clearances and how infrastructure meets the terminal and apron.
strong fitVisualise baggage halls, security and systems layouts against real equipment envelopes and maintenance access before they are locked.
strong fitWalk cargo and logistics buildings to test flow, dock layouts, vehicle movement and handling space at working scale.
strong fitTurn options and scenarios into something a board can stand inside, making spatial trade-offs tangible for non-technical decision makers.
emergingBring daylight, shading or flooding scenarios into a walkable model, so the impact of resilience and green choices is felt, not just charted.
emergingImmersive design is no longer a novelty at the leading architecture and engineering practices, and two of the closest names in our own aviation work are using it with airport clients today. The question for NACO is not whether to start, but how quickly we match them and where we can lead.
Their Applied Research and Development team has used VR, and later AR, for more than twenty years, running multi-user design reviews with designers and clients alike. They have built specialist tools too, including VARID, which simulates vision impairment so spaces can be designed to be genuinely inclusive, and they pair VR with eye-tracking to study and improve wayfinding.
Their dedicated ZHVR group, running since 2014, produces immersive experiences for as many projects as possible, from concept evaluation through to final client presentation. They report that letting clients stand in a space speeds decisions and surfaces required changes far earlier, and they are now building tools to design directly inside VR.
Arup runs dedicated immersive facilities, its SoundLab and ExperienceLab, and applies them in aviation. At Heathrow it built VR sound booths so the public could experience aircraft noise changes during airspace consultation, and on HS2 an immersive model reassured operators and the public and led to measurable improvements to the design.
AECOM offers a dedicated Visualization and Virtual Reality service whose clients include Heathrow Airport, Network Rail and Transport for London. It produces VR experiences and fly-throughs, for example recreating Waterloo Station so passengers could see its future concourse, and partnered early with headset makers to bring immersive review into design and construction.
Two of these firms, Arup and AECOM, compete with us directly on airport work, and both already put clients and the public inside immersive models. Standing still means being the practice that still presents flat drawings while our competitors hand the client a headset.
The good news is that we can match this now. With the Quest and our ACC and Enscape pipeline, the capability is already in the building. And our airport specific depth, control tower sightlines, passenger flow, baggage and ARFF, is exactly where we can move past visualisation for its own sake and lead on review that changes real design decisions. Independent studies back this up: reviewers working in VR consistently catch more issues, and read sightlines more accurately, than they do from 2D drawings.
The Quest is a shared practice device. Reserve it for your review session through the NACO AI Lab.
Make sure your Revit, Navisworks or IFC model is published to ACC. The pipeline reads it directly, no exports or conversions.
Walk the model solo, or invite colleagues into a shared session from headset or browser. Draw, measure and raise issues as you go.
Issues created in VR land back in ACC, ready for the desktop team to action in the same coordination environment.
Pick a project, book the headset, and bring a colleague who has never read your section. Watch the conversation change.