As part of the main project "Immersive Learning Spaces – Designing Virtual Learning Spaces" during the summer semester of 2025, students in the Computer Science in Culture and Health and Communication Design programs at HTW Berlin’s Future Realities Lab developed immersive, co-located multi-user VR experiences that translate various academic topics into interactive 3D learning environments. The project, led by Prof. Dr. Habakuk Israel and Prof. Pablo Dornhege, combined experimental design with technological implementation and explored how virtual spaces must be designed to enable complex content to be experienced in an intuitive, multisensory, and collaborative way. The starting point was the question of how immersive technologies can enable new forms of knowledge transfer that go beyond traditional teaching formats.

It was against this backdrop that the Future Food project was launched, in which students explored how future food systems could be translated into a playful, accessible VR world. The focus here is on alternative organisms such as macroalgae, jellyfish, and crickets, as studied in the food4future research project - Food of the Future. The team developed an immersive multiplayer experience: Visitors navigate imaginative aquatic and terrestrial environments, collecting nutrients such as proteins, vitamins, and antioxidants to ensure their own survival. In this way, they gain insights into urban indoor farming systems, vertical farming, and alternative foods of the future.

The project demonstrates how immersive design, scientific findings, and future societal issues can be brought together. It also illustrates how students can actively contribute to bringing new food systems to life.