**3. E-learning in professional architectural training and education**

Teaching architecture is not primarily an instructional process but rather a process of interaction and experience. An evaluation of the effectiveness of e-learning cannot only focus on the technology itself but should also examine the potential of technology as a tool for learning and design. Software for 3D modelling, rendering and animation and so on, should be combined with multi-user, interactive environments which support a social learning context. It is not that the 'virtual space' in which learning and teaching occurs

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Additional and more intensive cooperation between the respective educational

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

highly multi-disciplinary and emerging field of knowledge.

**3.1.2 Reluctance of e-learning use in architectural schools** 

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

Virtual campuses are already established at most universities in the European Community, yet surprisingly e-learning is not yet widespread in architectural schools in Europe and is arguably still in its initial research phase. Although there are best practice examples where e-learning is replacing traditional study forms in other teaching disciplines, it has been found in the participating architectural faculties that there is a considerable resistance to elearning. Among various other concerns, there is a common doubt that e-learning can be as equally effective as traditional face-to-face architectural studio teaching and culture. This is not a problem related only to architectural education and has been addressed in other projects such as OMAET, a pioneer in offering online degree programs for mid-career education professionals (Stager, 2005). Here, learner-centred theories and practices built upon the writings of Vygotsky, Lave, Wenger, Piaget & Papert stress that the course

institutions across Europe.

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

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

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