The Carbon Landscape’s Next Generation Augmented Reality Experience
Connecting wildlife, history and community stories through immersive digital heritage
PORTFOLIO
The Carbon Landscape Augmented Reality Experience was a pioneering immersive heritage project developed by AVimmerse as part of a £3.2 million National Lottery Heritage Fund programme.
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Designed to reconnect people with a vast post-industrial landscape across Salford, Wigan and Warrington, the experience blended augmented reality, illustration, archival photography and local storytelling into a single, accessible mobile experience.
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At a time when digital heritage was still emerging, this project demonstrated how augmented reality could be used not as spectacle, but as a tool for learning, connection and outdoor engagement.
The Carbon Landscape Partnership brought together councils, charities and national organisations to restore ecosystems, celebrate cultural heritage and reconnect communities across more than 10,000 hectares of landscape shaped by industry.
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AVimmerse was commissioned to explore how immersive technology could:
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Encourage people to explore the landscape physically.
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Make hidden wildlife visible.
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Surface overlooked human stories.
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Engage families, schools and new audiences
The Client
The Challenge
The project faced a clear tension.
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Digital experiences were increasingly screen-bound and gamified, while the Carbon Landscape programme was rooted in place, walking, wildlife and physical exploration.
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The challenge was to design something that:
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Worked outdoors, not indoors.
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Required no specialist equipment.
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Was usable by all ages.
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Could be experienced at home, in schools, or on site.
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Did not distract from the landscape, but enhanced it.
Accessibility and longevity were central concerns from the outset.
Our Approach
AVimmerse designed an augmented reality experience that allowed users to reveal layers of wildlife and history within their immediate environment. The project reflects our wider approach as a studio working at the intersection of immersive technology, storytelling and place-based engagement, where technology is always in service of meaning rather than novelty.
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The experience combined:
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Augmented reality wildlife encounters.
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Hand-illustrated 3D animals, insects and plants.
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Archival photography from the 1800s onwards.
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Location-agnostic interaction, usable anywhere.
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Voice-led storytelling focused on behaviour, habitat and memory.
Rather than recreating the landscape digitally, the app invited the real world back into focus, using AR as a lens rather than a replacement.
The Pit Brow Lasses ('Bells of the Black')
1968 Queen Garswood Hall Spoil Heaps
The CLAR Experience
Users could explore:
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Over 25 animated wildlife species.
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Historic photographs spanning 100 years.
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Local stories written by people who knew the landscape intimately.
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Narrated insights into ecology, industry and social history.
Stories ranged from industrial heritage and mining communities to everyday encounters with nature, creating a layered sense of time, memory and place.
This approach ensured the experience worked equally well:
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On a kitchen table.
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In a classroom.
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On a woodland path.
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Along canals and trails.
Heritage, Memory and People
Alongside wildlife, the experience brought human stories back into view.
Archival photographs and narrated stories included:
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Industrial working life.
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Community memory.
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Environmental change.
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Social history often absent from traditional interpretation.
These stories grounded the technology in lived experience, reinforcing that heritage is not just what survives physically, but what is remembered and shared.
Impact and Outcomes
The Carbon Landscape AR experience demonstrated that immersive technology could:
Support outdoor engagement rather than replace it
Work at regional scale
Be accessible without headsets or installations
Complement conservation, education and wellbeing goals
Over 70 people contributed to the creation of the experience, bringing together artists, technologists, historians, ecologists and community voices.
The project has since become a reference point for how augmented reality can support large-scale heritage and environmental programmes.
What the Client Said
The Carbon Landscape team highlighted AVimmerse’s ability to step in at a critical moment, clearly explain complex processes, and deliver high-quality immersive work under pressure. They praised the attention to detail, collaborative approach and the uniqueness of the final experience, noting that they would gladly work with AVimmerse again.
Creative Collaboration
Visual assets for the experience were created by internationally recognised virtual reality artist Rosie Summers, whose work brought warmth, personality and approachability to the wildlife encounters.
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This collaboration ensured the experience felt crafted, human and inviting rather than technical or abstract.
Partners
The project was delivered in collaboration with a wide network of national and regional partners, including local authorities, conservation organisations and heritage bodies.
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This scale of partnership reinforced the importance of robust, trustworthy digital delivery within publicly funded programmes.
Why This Project Still Matters
Although the app itself is no longer available, the project remains highly relevant.
It proved that:
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Augmented reality can support heritage, not distract from it.
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Digital storytelling works best when grounded in place.
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Community voice adds depth technology alone cannot provide.
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Immersive heritage can scale responsibly.
Many of the principles developed here continue to inform AVimmerse’s work in immersive heritage, storytelling and place-based engagement today.
Want to explore something similar?
If you are a council, trust, cultural organisation or place-based programme exploring immersive ways to connect people with heritage, nature or story, we would love to talk.
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This project is no longer live as an app, but its thinking lives on.
Let’s start a conversation
