Beyond Visualization: A Frailty-Oriented VR Framework for Social Sustainability in Higher Education

The growing integration of sustainability into university curricula requires teaching models capable of addressing social and environmental complexity through interdisciplinary and human-centered approaches. In this context, this research investigates the role of Virtual Reality as a pedagogical infrastructure to support sustainability-oriented learning, with a particular focus on conditions of frailty and the role of green spaces—areas that remain under-explored in the literature. The study adopts a research-through-design and design-based research approach, developed within a university course in which students design immersive environments using Extended Reality technologies and a shared metaverse hub. The methodological framework is structured in six iterative phases and is supported by a multi-level evaluation strategy based on project criteria and maturity indicators, applied to three learning domains. The results suggest the potential of Virtual Reality as a learning environment when technological, spatial, and design dimensions are coherently integrated. They also show different degrees of integration between frailty-oriented design approaches and spatial configurations, indicating how human-centered principles can be operationalized through design choices. In addition, the findings point to the role of green elements in contributing to the perceived quality of the experience when configured as active spatial components. Overall, the study proposes a replicable framework for integrating Virtual Reality into SDG-oriented curricula, providing evidence of design integration rather than a direct measurement of learning outcomes, and contributing to the connection between pedagogical, design, and environmental dimensions in higher education.