DESIGNING IMMERSIVE VIRTUAL STUDIOS FOR POSTGRADUATE DESIGN EDUCATION
2021-2022
As a member of Immersive Innovation Design (I²D) Research Group, I supported teaching on the MA/MSc Innovation Design Engineering programme, jointly run by the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London, during the COVID-19 lockdowns, when students had lost physical access to their studio. Working with the IDE teaching team, we developed three versions of a virtual studio across different platforms. These studios were designed to support collaborative peer learning, enable students to remain aware of one another’s activities across spaces, and provide alternative ways to exhibit design work remotely.
VIRTUAL STUDIOS IN GATHER.TOWN
The first version of the studio was built in Gather.town, a spatialised video communication platform and 2D screen-based environment. We recreated the Stevens Building, where IDE design activities had mainly taken place before the pandemic, to help students maintain a sense of connection with the original studio setting.
This space was first used for a social event where first-year students could meet their peers, engaging around 70 students. We also used it to conduct tutorials for the Superform module, in which students explored furniture form factors and designed their own chairs.
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After the social event, we created another virtual space for students to present their work as an alternative to the original on-campus exhibition. Students would normally show their chair designs in a physical exhibition space, so this virtual environment allowed them to present their work remotely while retaining an exhibition-like atmosphere.
The Gather.town studio was later published as a paper at DRS 2022.
VIRTUAL STUDIO IN HORIZON WORKROOMS
We then extended the virtual studio into a virtual reality (VR) environment. The next version was created in Horizon Workrooms and used to conduct a design workshop. Four students could sit around a shared table, work on an ideation task, and use notes and sketches in a more immersive environment than Gather.town. However, due to the constraints of the platform, students had limited freedom to move around the virtual studio.
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VIRTUAL STUDIO IN SPATIAL
Next, we built another virtual studio in Spatial, a VR platform that offered students greater freedom to move around the room and communicate with other participants. This environment also allowed more students to take part in a workshop at the same time.
The VR studio work was later published as a paper at EI 2023.
The virtual studio project concluded as the COVID-19 pandemic subsided and students returned to campus-based teaching.