Boosting urban community resilience to multi-hazard scenarios in open spaces: a Virtual Reality – Serious Game training prototype for heat wave protection and earthquake response

A key role in making cities resilient has been acknowledged in raising risk preparedness and awareness of urban communities, by appropriate education and communication strategies, which should rely on innovative and pervasive tools. In this regard, an outstanding paradigm shift is driven by the advancement of Virtual Reality, which can take advantage of Serious Games, for helping individuals develop responsive behaviours in case of both slow and sudden disasters and, thus, boosting effective human-urban-building interaction within a wider process of safety and sustainability. To this end, the paper proposes a VR-SGs training prototype for multi-hazard scenarios in urban open spaces. The prototype integrates results from phenomenological and behavioural analyses and is applied to representative typologies of the built environment. The prototype is demonstrated for heat wave protection and earthquake response through the design and implementation of its functional features – virtual environment, interaction mode, learning outcomes and storyline – and its informative contents, including simulation-based data on surface temperatures, extent of falling debris and crowd motion. The final goal is to validate a reliable and flexible tool in view of wide replication in urban contexts for both instructing on critical situations and communicating mitigation strategies.