Designing in an Immersive Virtual Reality Environment: Implications for Design Education

Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) technology presents a transformative potential for architectural and interior design education, yet a clear understanding of students’ perceived benefits and challenges in real-world educational settings remains limited, creating a research gap. Existing research offers conflicting views on IVR’s integration, particularly concerning its impact on traditional design tools and its practical adoption. This study aims to explore students’ perceptions of incorporating IVR into architectural and interior design curricula, investigating perceived benefits of using IVR in design creativity and spatial visualization, discussing IVR’s potential to alleviate scale and proportion issues in design, comparing IVR with traditional tools, and identifying adoption challenges. 35 architecture and interior architecture students, with no or minimal VR experience, participated in this study. By providing empirical insights into students’ direct experiences with IVR in design education, this research offers a student-centric perspective often lacking in previous studies, contributing to informed curriculum development and instructional strategies. Findings revealed a generally positive student perception of IVR, particularly for its realism and engagement. The study demonstrates that students appreciate IVR’s potential to mitigate scale and proportion issues and its ability to foster design alternatives. This research underscores the need for educators to explore IVR’s features to maximize its educational efficacy. This student-centric research contributes empirical insights into IVR’s integration and informs curriculum development, to advance design education through immersive technologies, enhancing spatial understanding and spatial design.