(continued)

Although their solutions fill functional, short-term needs for specific cases, the virtual environment suffers from long-term difficulties in organization and accessibility. Some popular virtual places are linear rather than spatial. For example a common chat "room" is treated as a single dialogue window, rather than a place with spatial qualities. This desktop metaphor does fulfil its chatting purpose but may, in the future, be thought of as early vernacular virtual architecture.

Architects as virtual world designers

The expanding virtual world and the ever-increasing intensity of online activities is having a significant impact on our social and cultural environment, hence affecting the built environment and potentially altering lifestyles. As the effect of online activities gradually penetrates our daily life, architects will be presented with more complicated design problems that require a multidimensional view and cross-disciplinary approach.

In three-dimensional virtual places, we are increasingly confronted with higher-degree spatial organization, including descriptions and the relationship between content and space. As we try to go beyond casual social activity and do more complex and demanding tasks we find we need a few interconnected rooms with different functional objects to differentiate tasks. This is when the concept of spatial design and organization comes into play. Because architects are traditionally trained to manipulate spaces to provide functionality, they may well be suited to design online places.

Implication on education and practice

Architecture schools have conducted virtual design studios since 1993, and we have been learning about the opportunities for virtual collaborative design environments. We can now distinguish between a virtual design studio that provides similar functionality as the physical studio but allows for collaboration among participants around the globe, from a virtual design studio that allows collaborative modeling in an immersive 3D world, referred to as designing within the design. These developments have provided opportunities for students to have cross-cultural design experiences and develop a knowledge base of computer-mediated collaboration.

For the profession, the increasing globalization of design teams has fueled the demand for better online design and communication environments. A virtual design office enables architects to better utilize human resources and minimize cost and time spent on travelling and maintaining an office. The design of these environments can take many forms; Figures 3, 4, and 5 illustrate three different approaches. These developments have the potential to change the way architects work and also to change the designs they create.

Architects and educators should respond to these new conditions and start addressing various issues directly related to the profession. Architecture schools should consider incorporating the study of virtual architecture in the curriculum. They should try to cultivate a theoretical and philosophical understanding of virtual worlds including the social and technological effects on the built environment caused by an increase in online activities.

At a more practical level, they should teach computing technologies needed to design digital spaces, just as they teach the construction technologies needed to design real buildings. This will not only provide students with a sound knowledge of virtual architecture but also some basic skills to explore and shape the electronic frontier.

Research directions

Despite the accepted practicality of distant collaborative design, locating a design studio in virtual places remains an illusive idea. Research is needed to work out the feasibility of how collaboration in a virtual place can facilitate design

The representation of 3D immersive virtual buildings and environments within virtual worlds also needs to be developed further. 'Representation' refers to not just the appearance but also to the appropriateness of chosen geometry and function. An unsuitable choice will result in an environment that is unfamiliar or unrecognizable.

On the other extreme, blindly imitating physical forms without questioning their meaning and function gets in the way of developing a functionally sustainable virtual environment. We must seek a design language suitable for online activities. This will probably result in a form that may not look like its physical counterpart but still remain a recognizable and navigable space. There may be many design languages that are suitable for building virtual worlds.

Central to the usefulness of a virtual environment is its intended function and behavior. Without these, any virtual place is merely a 3D geometry that people can walk through and observe. A virtual architect needs to conceive a structure and form with required function and behavior so that people can do constructive things there. Precisely imitating reality may seem to be an obvious choice but it is not necessarily the best one.

A truly functional virtual environment needs to be habitable and navigable. To effectively orient people within a virtual environment requires a detailed study of environmental cognition. Principles of way-finding are important design issues especially in a large and complicated virtual environment. Representation is related to this because it determines how we experience the virtual space. Understanding exactly how cognitive principles can be applied to the design of virtual worlds requires more experiments and demonstrations.

Kok Hong Lau and Mary Lou Maher, Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, Faculty of Architecture, University of Sydney.

A private meeting room designed to look like a physical meeting. Image courtesy Mary Lou Maher A virtual office designed as a virtual place. Image courtesy Mary Lou Maher A virtual office on the virtual building site. Image courtesy Mary Lou Maher