[01] Tilanka Chandrasekera, Department of Design Housing and Merchandising, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA.

Architectural education has considerably deviated from the process oriented nature to being product oriented due in part to the proliferation of digital tools which provide one step solutions. In this view it is necessary to discuss the relevance of design critiques which in nature have been seen as product oriented. There have been many studies conducted on the architectural critique process and its relevance to architectural education which have been mainly based on the traditional physical space settings. These studies mostly focus on the salient features of design critiques and aim to provide a guideline in conducting such critiques. The practice of architecture, while becoming global in scope, is constantly exploring emerging technology for effective distance communication. . There have been a number of studies conducted on the viability of online tools for online design studios, which are the core components in design education. Previous studies have often considered the online environment as supplementary to the physical setting and in most studies online environments are considered to have the same properties as the physical environment when the online environment offers more possibilities in enhancing architectural education. In this study we consider the architectural critique process as an educational procedure and investigate if an online virtual environment can facilitate the traditional architectural critique. The purpose of this study is to develop the knowledge base guiding the planning and design of online virtual collaborative environments that can achieve effective learning outcomes through an architectural critique process by initiating a framework for online based design critiques.

Virtual Reality, Design Critiques, Design Education

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