APPLICATION OF IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGIES IN THE EARLY DESIGN STAGE IN ARCHITECTURE EDUCATION - A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

This paper reviews existing research on the use of immersive technologies, Virtual Reality in particular, in various stages of the architectural design process. Nine research papers were systematically reviewed and analyzed. They were filtered down by using the keywords: ‘Virtual/Augmented Reality, Architectural Education, Gravity Sketch, Unity and Virtual Environments’ from two main databases that focus on digital and computer-aided design research: Cumulative Index about publications in Computer Aided Architectural Design (CuminCAD) and Elsevier\u27s abstract and citation database (Scopus). The selection of papers was filtered down based on relevant approaches which investigate architectural design, creative thinking and teaching methodology using immersive technologies. Another criterion applied to the filtering process of the research papers is the exploration and integration process of new tools and overlapping external software to aid the existing workflow of the user. Our findings explore the evolution of immersive tools to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of virtual reality-based software and hardware, as a creative development tool in the field of education and practice. This paper also proposes a novel teaching methodology that incorporates immersive technologies in the early design phase of architectural education

Immersive Technologies in Architectural Education: A pedagogical framework for integrating virtual reality as the main design tool in a fully virtualised architectural design studio environment

Given the increased accessibility and utilization of VR tools in architectural education, embracing a fully virtualised design process still remains taboo. The recent covid-19 pandemic has forced universities to fully adopt remote learning/teaching systems that showcased a disconnection between direct interaction, communication design methods and tools. Immersive tools like VR could play a unique role in closing that gap, allowing users to collaborate and design using avatars in the online virtual space. With this paper, we aim to examine the possibility of a fully virtualised, architectural design studio framework and explore its outcomes throughout the design process. It incorporates multiple digital 3D exercises deriving from manually-driven techniques including sketching and collage-making. We then test the framework for one semester within the Immersive Design and Collaboration Design Studio Unit, which runs in parallel to non-virtualised studio units, working on the same site and context. Our findings highlight the strengths and challenges of the implemented framework and its evaluation through student surveys and student portfolio submissions, to compare the student output developed in both the virtualised and non-virtualised design studio