ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN IN VIRTUA

This dissertation, "Architectural Design in Virtual Environments: Exploring Cognition and Communication in Immersive Virtual Environments" by Marc Aurel, Schnabel, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of the thesis entitled Architectural Design in Virtual Environments Exploring cognition and communication in Immersive Virtual Environments submitted by Marc Aurel Schnabel for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Hong Kong in June 2004 There is a distance between the idea in the imagination of a design and its representation, communication and realisation. Architects use a variety of tools to bridge this gap. Each tool places different demands on the designer and each, through inherent characteristics and affordances, introduces reinterpretations of the design idea, thus imposing a divergence between the idea and the expression of the idea. Design is an activity that is greatly complex, influenced by numerous factors. The process may follow rules or established proceedings and traditions. Alternatively, the designer may choose to explore freely with no need to conventions. In all instances, the medium in which the exploration takes place will affect the act of designing to some degree. Tools are chosen, in part, to facilitate the chosen design process. Most researches on Virtual Environments (VE) have focused on their use as presentation or simulation environments. There has been inadequate research in the use of VE for designing. It has been suggested that this tool can empower designers to express, explore and convey their imagination more easily. For these reasons the very different nature of VE may allow architects to create designs that make use of the properties of VE that other tools do not offer in that way. As yet, barely any basic research has examined the use of VE to support the acts of designing. This thesis examines the implications of architectural design within VE. Perception and comprehension of spatial volumes within VE is examined by the comparison of representations using conventional architectural design method. A series of experiments was conducted to investigate the relative effectiveness of both immersive and non-immersive VE by looking at the creation, interpretation and communication of architectural design. The findings suggest why form comprehension and finding may be enhanced within VE activity. The thesis draws conclusions by comparing the results with conventional methods of two- dimensional depictions as they appear on paper or three-dimensional representations such as physical models. DOI: 10.5353/th_b3202187 Subjects: Virtual reality in architecture Architectural design - Data processing