Virtual Studio of Design and Technology on Internet

This paper presents a teaching experience involving students and professors from various universities, in Italy and abroad, which began in 1996 and is still on going. The Virtual Studios on the Internet (VSI) have some features in common with the Teaching Studios planned for the new programme of the faculties of Architecture in Italian universities. These are the definition of a common design theme, and the participation of disciplinary teachers. The greatest difference is in the modes of collaboration, which is achieved through information and communication technologies. The chief result of this is that the various work groups in different places can work and collaborate at the same time: the computer networks provide the means to express, communicate and share the design project. Apart from giving the first results of this experience, the paper intends to examine certain theoretical aspects of the teaching of architectural design in relation to the innovations produced by information and communication technologies. It is a response, firstly, to our need to organise systematically these on-going experiences, and, secondly, to the theoretical content of the teaching programmes. It will also deal with the methods of information storage and retrieval determined by the computer, the media for communication offered by telematics, and the spatial configurations adopted. It is the need to think up a working method, and a teaching method, that can correspond to innovation. What is required is, if not a systemisation, then at least an organisation capable of comparison with the cultural reference points in each individual’s design and teaching method.