Real-time immersive design collaboration: conceptualising, prototyping and experiencing design ideas

This paper discusses a collaborative trans-disciplinary virtual design studio project in which students designed while immersed within a real-time gaming environment. The ability to control and interact with a wide range of objects in-game allowed students to visually create, prototype and experience spatial and formal scenarios in real-time. Multi-player technology enabled the design team to be virtually present at the site of construction and to design while actively building and critiquing. It was found that the virtual environment enabled rapid testing of design iterations and extended the range of creative conceptual design responses.