ARCHVILLE (poster session): a pedagogy for teaching collaboration in a VR environment

Archville is a distributed, Web-based VR system that allows multiple users to interact with multiple models at the same time. We use it as a platform to exercise collaborative design. The pedagogy is based on Cardboard City, which required each student to construct a 3’x3’ structure within a ‘city’ formed by all students in the studio. Like the original exercise, Archville requires students to build individual buildings as part of a city, or village, and share some common formal convention with their neighbors. Unlike the original exercise, Archville uses VRML rather than cardboard. In addition to architectural design and computer modeling, the exercise immerses students in the political and social aspects of designing within a community, where many of the design constraints must be negotiated, and where group work is often required. As a Web-based system, Archville also demonstrates the advantages of up-to-date information and real-time communication in a virtual environment.