The Use of Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) For a Collaborative and Interactive Education in the Architectural BIM Design

Abstract

Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) has emerged as powerful platforms for communication and interactive tool, and has been attracting considerable interest in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry. Since it is important to address inefficient communication and collaboration between stakeholders throughout the project cycle, IVEs can play an important role by giving all participants a clearer vision of their project with high immersion and intuitive representation of design information, which leads to enhance their ability to make well-informed decisions. However, the curriculum for AEC education in Hong Kong has failed to keep up with global advances in technology. It is still founded on single discipline-oriented, unidirectional and non-project based learning. Consequently, our AEC education is challenged in its capacity to provide students with opportunities for collaboration in multidisciplinary teams, with a limited ability to give them hands-on experience in the use of state-of-the-art technology and to impart practical project knowledge. To address these challenges, this study aims to bring an integrated platform incorporating both IVEs and Building Information Modeling (BIM) into university classrooms. This will provide a unique way of learning, and one that is unlike all other existing media and teaching tools. Using 3D environments incorporating existing BIM technology, students can gain practical experience of any real-world construction problems or virtual situations. A case study have conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the IVEs, and the preliminary results support the idea that IVEs can enhance students’ collaboration and interaction while they facing architectural design problems.