On February 1, 2010, the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), in partnership with Virtual Housing Solutions, will release Phase 1 of the Beta Version of Virtual Housing^TM for NJIT’s residence halls.

Virtual Housing^TM will allow viewers to examine NJIT’s residence halls from the comfort of their personal computer. This allows both current and prospective students to view individual floors, rooms, and room furniture in all four residence halls without having to be on campus to do so. Virtual Housing^TM uses the “latest 3-D rendering techniques and organizes them into an easy-to-use web application.”

Virtual Housing Solutions was founded by two NJIT alumni, Michael Adams, a 2009 graduate with a degree in Architecture, and Thomas Zamirski, who is currently completing his Mechanical Engineering degree.  According to Adams, the supposedly small project was commissioned in May of 2009 when “NJIT’s Residence Life originally wanted some renderings of a room or two.”  The project progressed from a few renderings into a business in mid-November when Adams realized the possibilities and potential in the venture.

During this time, Zamirski, a close friend of Adams’ since they lived in Redwood 508 their freshmen year, joined and helped form the project they call Virtual Housing Solutions. Both Adams and Zamirski hope to use NJIT as a pilot university to further their business with other institutions across the country.

According to Adams, he primarily does the visual aspect of the project while Zamirski does the programming side. Adams stated, “Everything that has been asked of him [Zamirski] , he’s done well… considering he’s a mechanical engineer and not a programmer.”

Jim Whitaker, Residence Coordinator of Redwood Hall at NJIT, stated that Virtual Housing^TM “is going to allow students to view housing on our campus… it will be a tremendous tool for our students to view housing options.”  Karen Quackenbush, Assistant Director of Residence Life at NJIT, mentioned, “Students may not always remember [what they see], or are not able to see NJIT’s rooms,” and it is Residence Life’s belief that this will allow them to better motivate students to live on campus.

Residence Life often receives phone calls from parents and prospective students about the specifications of windows and closets, as well as miscellaneous information on an almost daily basis. Through the use of Virtual Housing^TM, everyone will be able to view the community that NJIT students live in, and have any of their lingering questions answered.

Virtual Housing^TM will allow prospective students to see building locations, bathrooms, and study lounges; parents/guardians to be informed of safety on campus, laundry facilities, and bed/closet sizes; international students to become knowledgeable on living security and community living; and current students to view upper class halls when making choices during room selection.

However, Virtual Housing^TM success will depend solely on the feedback and suggestions of NJIT’s students.  These will allow Adams and Zamirski to improve the application.   Suggestions will help Adams and Zamirski find ways to change the program to better suit the university and the students’ needs, while allowing them to further improve their application for use in other universities. They also believe that Virtual Housing^TM isn’t solely for the university, but rather for the student population at NJIT.

Improvements to Virtual Housing^TM will appear later in the semester as phases two and three are yet to be released. When questioned about what else will be added to Virtual Housing^TM, Adams simply asked it be kept a secret. Adams did state however, “As a former student, it’s about time something like this happened at NJIT,” and he couldn’t be more excited.