Kean Students Help Build Immersive Virtual Tour of Nantucket’s Old Gaol Using XR

Kean University students are helping bring a historic Nantucket jail to life through an immersive virtual experience that allows users to explore the site from anywhere in the world. 

The project combines digital capture, 3D modeling and storytelling to create a digital twin of Nantucket’s historic Old Gaol, allowing users to explore the space on a phone or computer, with optional virtual reality immersion through a headset. 

With a click or a swipe, the view of the tight jail shifts. Stone walls, iron hardware and the stories they hold are fully explorable in 360 degrees as part of the Nantucket XR (Extended Reality) research project. 

Graphic design students Gabriele Correa and Jayden Ball contributed to both the technical build and storytelling strategy, blending creative challenges with real-world production. 

“I had a lot of fun looking at the buildings and rendering them into the 3D modeling space,” Ball said. “But when I was able to put the headset on and look around, whoa, seeing what the jail looked like back then, as if it was right in front of me, was a whole other thing.” 

Correa focused on research and visitor engagement, building the narratives that bring the space to life and developing a QR-based entry point to meet visitors where they are. 

Nantucket XR reimagines how people experience history, expanding access to spaces that may otherwise be difficult to enter.  

The project is guided by Assistant Professor Henry Stankiewicz, a creative technologist who teaches motion design at Kean’s Michael Graves College. His work centers on the concept of “agency,” giving users more control over how they engage with information. 

“When we watch videos, we press play and we’re a captive audience,” he said. “My work deals with immersive media, the ability to look around and determine what you want to do, see or touch, and the order in which you choose to engage with those experiences.” 

That philosophy shapes Nantucket XR, which is designed to increase access to historic sites often limited by staffing and preservation needs. It also addresses physical barriers that can make in-person visits challenging, especially for individuals with disabilities. 

“What we’re doing is making some of these smaller historical sites accessible, because they have great stories to tell,” Stankiewicz said. “Providing a digital twin means that anyone in the world can experience what these places look like on the inside.” 

The team’s collaboration with the Nantucket Historical Association (NHA) began with the Nantucket Harbor Visualization Project, experienced on-site through XR binoculars. Similar to coin-operated scenic viewers, the installation offers a time-travel perspective. Instead of magnifying the present-day harbor, the binoculars reveal what Nantucket’s shoreline looked like 200 years ago. 

“It is such an amazing experience because we’re working with a real client, and we’re producing very real things,” Correa said. “It’s not every day students get to work directly with a client on a project that’s designed to help a lot of people.” 

Building on that work, the team shifted from a single viewpoint experience to a fully immersive digital tour of the Old Gaol. Using digital capture and real-time visualization, they recreated the jail’s four holding cells and integrated stories about inmates and key historical events. 

“Historical accuracy is important, because without it, it’s not a digital twin,” Stankiewicz said. “We added interactive callouts where you can tap or click to gather more information.” 

Stankiewicz and his students will return to Nantucket to complete additional scanning and expand the project. The Jethro Coffin House is next, with plans to include more NHA sites. The tours will be available on the NHA’s website, app and YouTube channel.