The Role of Serious Gaming using Virtual Reality Applications for 3D Architectural Visualization

This paper investigates the advantage of VR technology in architectural education. Different studies showed that VR increases the engagement and motivation of students by creating an interactive environment and provides deeper learning. On the other hand, Precedents in architecture are the first and the most important step toward architectural education. One needs to study these precedents and store them in the experiential/episodic memory. Visiting precedents is more beneficial than conventional ways of studying them such as hand sketching but it is costly and not available to all students. Therefore, we believe that the VR technology can take the place of visiting precedents since it resembles the precedents exactly and offers a better, cheaper and easier way for accumulating highly specific architectural knowledge than a local visit due to providing architectural interactivity. We tested our hypothesis by using Therme Vals and an HTC Vive headset among architecture students. This paper shows that VR is an advantage in architectural education because it offers cheap and easy solutions for studying precedents. Also, it motivates the students and leads to deeper learning because of the interactivity that it offers. The students were able to recognize a complex plan clearly and remember the spatial configuration.