**3.1.1 The objectives of VIPA**

The overall objective of the project is to expand and enhance education in the field of architecture within a virtual campus through development of pedagogical courseware and appropriate technological platforms. Project goals include:


should only represent the vibrancy of an architectural studio when it is best, but that its application offers new potential for architectural curricula. Architecture can be described as a combination of practical, functional and technical solutions to a spatial problem, which gives or explores an aesthetic reflection of the society in which it occurs. It relies on an interdisciplinary teamwork of different professions, each with different visual language abilities and expertise, towards achieving a common goal – a building, an urban design, or settlement – in a non-linear way. Sometimes very technical and sometimes very intuitive,

While the theory of learning in such an environment has been established in the preceding theoretical framework, for application to the scaffolding provided by instructors or mentors, the actual context of the learning environment must receive closer attention. Prevailing learning management and content management systems (LMS & CMS), such as Moodle, lack the integrated tools for visual and 3D based communication exchange in architectural education. The problems of useful, economically viable, and most of all effortless integration of communication, learning management and design tools is such that the field of architecture has yet to find the 'magic' e-learning solution. However, by addressing specific

Architecture has also transcended its historically physical domain into the virtual, shaping insistent immersive environments, not only crossing the digital divide but also redefining notions traditionally held to be self-evident, such as the nature of digital tectonics, the

As an example of an e-learning project, VIPA (Kipcak, 2007) is of particular interest. It has been developed through an EU project to address many relevant issues of e-learning in architecture, using traditional LMS e-learning tools and integrating new ones. The showcased example being complex enough to point out the specifics of e-learning *in* architecture (and the content is, we will assume, more or less known to the reader) we will

The overall objective of the project is to expand and enhance education in the field of architecture within a virtual campus through development of pedagogical courseware and

A virtual campus integrating administrative, curricular and communicative

Competence development in the design of virtual and augmented reality for

Development and coordination of the training of European architecture students in the

Use of industrial know-how in the field of interactive 3D-authoring for the training of

An internationalisation of curricula into joint or double degree developments for

 Content and conception input for these industries from the field of architecture Coordination and research at European architecture universities in this field

this process is a difficult task to mould into a constructivist e-learning environment.

tasks with suitable tools effective, albeit partial, solutions can be developed.

**3.1 Showcase example: Virtual campus for virtual space design provided for** 

simulation or otherwise of gravity constraints, scale, and presence.

follow the case and underlying notions simultaneously.

appropriate technological platforms. Project goals include:

infrastructures for schools of architecture.

architectural students and/or graduates.

**european architects (VIPA)** 

**3.1.1 The objectives of VIPA** 

architecture students.

field of 3D-design

architects

 Additional and more intensive cooperation between the respective educational institutions across Europe.

Fig. 1. The organizational and structural layout of VIPA virtual campus (Kipcak, 2007).

University curricula have developed out of local core competences, teachers and researchers. These local factors are woven into the fabric of a transnational VIPA curriculum and supported with organizational layout, platform, user interfaces and their features. It has been therefore proposed that all participants offer their existing courses in virtual space design, as well as developing new ones. This offers the option for both present and future participants to adjust the VIPA courseware to suit local curricula demands, while offering a large range of courses and knowledge. The professional fields that students of these curricula may enter range from well-established fields like architectural design to emerging fields like information design and the provision of virtual environments as extensions to existing institutions of complex social networks. An additional feature of VIPA is thus as a platform for curricula development for virtual space design to cope with the demands of a highly multi-disciplinary and emerging field of knowledge.
