Exploring Alternative Urban and Architectural Virtual Realities Through Multidomain Digital Twins

This chapter tackles the use of multidomain Digital Twins (DTs) in a Virtual Reality (VR) environment to analyze their potential for design analysis and decision-making. It presents the initial results of an ongoing interdisciplinary research, which draws parallels between the work of Renaissance architects and contemporary practices to conceptualize and explore the application of these technologies in architectural and urban regeneration projects within historic environments. The chapter also presents reproducible workflows that leverage the use of multidomain DTs for navigating and assessing alternative scenarios for urban and landscape design and management, and digital and design history, using the Unity3D game engine. The applicability of the proposal and its cultural relevance are illustrated using the case of Palazzo Rucellai in Florence, to visualize different configurations of the façade project, considering its immediate urban context. This case also opens a discussion on the potential for the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques in the pro-posed pipeline.