What is it about?

This chapter aims to investigate the impact of Virtual Reality (VR) in the fields of Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) in both academia and industry as two interdependent and interlinked domains. This chapter is depicting the importance of the utilization of VR technology in both the AEC education and practice. As decision making in the AEC industry involves several stakeholders, starting from professionals to the public, VR makes it possible to simplify the interaction amongst all of them, and therefore better decisions could be realized.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

In architectural education, Virtual Reality (VR) is principally the technology that aims at immersing the students inside a virtual 1:1 scale space where they can experience and navigate that space as if it is a real-world to their senses. VR is increasingly gaining momentum in architectural design education in a way that helps with better preparing the graduating students for industry. By investing in working within, an as immersive VR experience and dedicating needed time and energy in doing that, these graduating students as architects or architectural engineers will be more capable of designing built environments that reflect considerable awareness of architectural and building systems of quality and integration. Immersive VR technologies are strongly expected to prevail in the near future, changing the nature of the architectural design discipline and its related educational methods (Rodriguez 2019) forever. While the immersive VR tool can significantly help the students develop their design projects a more articulated manner, it can also inform them about the famous architectural works of pioneering architects through virtual tours around the world to explore various architectural styles and forms from the comfort of a design studio.

Perspectives

The Architectural Engineering (AE) Undergraduate Program at the College of Engineering, United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) is a typical five years ABET-Accreted Program that is committed to achieving the Program Learning Outcomes (PLOs) as defined by the ABET. According to the ABET Engineering Accreditation Commission (2019), the AE graduates are expected to consider the basic concepts of architecture in the context of architectural/building design (ABET Engineering Accreditation Commission 2019). So, while working within the overall architectural design, building design should consider the systems or processes from other architectural engineering curricular areas, include computer-based technology, consider applicable building codes and standards, and finally consider fundamental attributes of building performance and sustainability. To satisfy the ABET accreditation requirements, the AE Undergraduate Program at the UAEU has selected building construction to be at the main Design attainment level, followed by the building structure at the Application level and finally the building electro-mechanical systems at the Comprehension level. In the AE Building Design Studios, students are required to work according to this attainment hierarchy for their architectural engineering design projects.

Dr Khaled Galal Ahmed
UAEU

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Virtual Reality Technology Trends Current and Future Applications, an Interdisciplinary Overview, March 2022, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1201/9781003051381-2.
You can read the full text:

Read

Contributors

The following have contributed to this page