AN EDUCATIONAL APPLICATION BASED ON VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGY FOR LEARNING ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS: CHALLENGES AND BENEFITS

Abstract

Architectural learning is intensely multifaceted and faces many challenges. Educational theories such as Problem Based Learning, Flipped Learning, Learning Styles theory, and Experiential Learning theory are researchers’ responses to those challenges. In fact, many of these theories need proper means in order to be effectively applied in architectural education. Moreover, the possibilities provided by Virtual Reality (VR) Technology, combined with the complex intrinsic properties of architectural pedagogy, place this technology under architecture researchers’ constant watch. With its experiential nature, VR technology can improve architectural students’ learning. Although the study of VR applications for educational purposes is not new, this is rarely studied in the light of emerging learning theories in architectural education. In response, an educational application called LADUVR (“Learning Architectural Details Using Virtual Reality Technology”) has been designed by the authors to show how VR would address the current shortcomings of architecture learning systems. The present paper discusses the benefits and challenges of developing these kinds of applications, and shows how by using LADUVR users can experience being on a construction site, investigate the architectural details closely, and test what they have learned in an interactive and immersive environment. To continue, the paper examines the feedback from the implementation of LADUVR; with the results indicating that LADUVR would indeed enhance the learning of architectural detailing in most aspects. The paper concludes with a comparison between the use of this application and conventional learning methods.