V I PA: a virtual campus for virtual space design

The design of space as a container for social interaction is of central concern to architects. Increasingly, the design and implementation of space and place is no longer reliant on the physical construction processes of the building industry. In consequence, new opportunities for work and employment for the aesthetical and conceptional design of these virtual places are opening up for architects. In response to this challenge, a transnational virtual campus is currently being developed; it contains an e-learning and research platform for European architectural schools with a focus on Virtual Space Design (VIPA). The virtual campus integrates administrative, curricular, and communicative infrastructures, interactive, multimedia 3-D contents, and pedagogical considerations in respect of the aims, content and technologies employed. The virtual campus, its didactical and technical functionalities as well as its content is being developed in collaboration with four European architectural faculties, a commercial partner in the field of interactive 3D authoring-tools and has been supported by a partner with competencies in the development of e-learning curricula. Virtual campuses are already established at most universities in the European Community, yet surprisingly e-learning is not yet widespread in architectural schools in Europe. E-learning is arguably still in an initial research phase; although there are best practice examples where e-learning is already replacing traditional study forms in other teaching disciplines. However, it has been found that although all the universities involved in the VIPA project have been involved in e-learning projects for many years, there is a considerable resistance to e-learning as being equally effective as traditional face-to-face studio teaching. Given the new virtual conditions of space design however, new contexts for learning are increasingly relevant. The overall objective of the project is to expand and enhance education in the field of architecture within a virtual campus through development of pedagogical courseware and appropriate technological platforms. Project goals include: • A virtual campus integrating administrative, curricular and communicative infrastructures for schools for architecture. • Competence development in the design of virtual and augmented reality for architecture students. • Development and coordination of the training of European architecture students in the field of 3D-design • Use of industrial know-how in the field of interactive 3D-authoring for the training of architects • Content and conception input for these industries from the field of architecture • Coordination and research at European architecture universities in this field • An internationalisation of curricula into joint or double degree developments for architectural students and/or graduates. • Additional and more intensive cooperation between the respective educational institutions across Europe. University curricula have developed out of local competencies, networks of teachers and researchers. These local factors need to be woven into the fabric of a transnational VIPA curriculum and supported with organizational layout, platform, user interfaces and their features. It has been therefore proposed that all participants offer their existing courses in virtual space design, as well as developing new ones. This offers the option for both present and future participants to adjust the VIPA courseware to suit local curricula demands, while offering a large range of courses and knowledge. An additional feature of VIPA is thus as a platform for curricula development in virtual space design. It has been found that participating universities already operate with one or several e-learning platforms such as WebCT or FirstClass. It can be anticipated that, for financial and administrative reasons, it will prove difficult to convince an organization to change its commitment to existing platforms. Therefore the software used to deliver the courseware component must not be tied to any particular management environment. Overall assessment of the virtual campus platforms has therefore been made on the criteria of sustainability, flexibility, and integration. In addition to the requirement of open source software, other software considerations include: the provision of an immersive 3d environment; a scriptable built in language; the allowance of co-presence; an existing large community of users / developers; relatively low levels of technical demand on hardware and operating systems; and portability across operating systems. After a number of options were examined, it has been proposed that the ‘open croquet 3d world platform’ should be used for the first demonstration project, with ‘Moodle’ as the courseware administration and management component. The paper will report on the VIPA project’s aims, pedagogical problems, solutions, course content and methods; it will describe prototype results from participating universities and include perspectives on its future application.