Abstract:

This paper presents the initial results from the JISC-funded weCAMP project: A Web-Based Interactive Visualisation Modelling Platform to Effect Participative and Collaborative Planning and Design of Future Learning Spaces, at the University of Sheffield in England. The project team are addressing a key area of institutional concern, that of effective planning for and use of future learning spaces. Central to the project is the development of the uCampus platform openly accessible to all stakeholders associated with the University’s planning and design process to effect participation and collaboration. We envisage that one of the key applications of uCampus is the development of an innovative pedagogy in 3D interactive architectural design visualisation modelling. With university learning taking place online more often and with students from around the world, our interactive e-modelling platform holds many possibilities that could deliver 3D e-learning experiences beyond current popular applications such as Google Earth and Second Life.

Key strategic areas of the University campus are being modelled by the project team. Adopting the latest open source Web3D standard of Extensible 3D (X3D), 3D buildings and terrain of the campus areas are made available on the JAVA-based uCampus platform. Users can freely navigate the virtual campus at varying scales from a macroscopic urban scene to an intimate microscopic interior floor inside a building. uCampus is also designed to support more active users such as architectural design students or professional practitioners who have an interest in planning and designing new buildings or learning/teaching spaces for the University. There are two main ways that these advanced users can interact with uCampus: (1) define and download the campus context models as the basis for developing new designs, and (2) upload their design proposals to be shown in the correct 3D campus context for collaborative working and peer review.

A group of 22 postgraduate students undertaking a Masters course at the School of Architecture are currently evaluating how uCampus could be used to visualise 3D designs in context. The students are working on a site where the University has some plans for future redevelopment. The students working in teams are asked to redevelop a disused Edwardian building into a new Learning Hub and to propose a new urban plan for an adjacent empty site recently acquired by the University. Most students on the course are competent with basic 3D modelling using popular packages such as SketchUp and 3D Studio MAX. But they have no experiences of serious contextual modelling as set out by the uCampus platform. In this case, the students are invited to try out an experimental pedagogy in architectural design, where the context modelled by dedicated researchers is longer treated as muted backdrops but active focuses in developing meaningful dialogues right from the design conception stage. Early results from the Sheffield experiment show that there remain considerable barriers to be overcome before students could fully embrace the principles of 3D design visualisation in context.

Keywords:

visualisation, x3d, participation, collaboration, learning spaces, 3d design.