Augmented Reality Gaming in Sustainable Design Education

Steven K Ayer,John I Messner,Chimay J Anumba

doi:10.1061/(asce)ae.1943-5568.0000195

Steven K Ayer, John I Messner + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1061/(asce)ae.1943-5568.0000195

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Abstract

AbstractIt is important for students in academic disciplines related to building design and construction to gain an understanding of the different sustainable design considerations that will affect a building’s performance. Additionally, it is important for these students to be able to generate, visualize, and assess the performance of alternative design options to determine the best possible approach. The research presented in this paper tasked students with performing a building redesign activity in which they had to design, visualize, and assess exterior wall designs to retrofit an existing facility and improve its sustainable performance. It was of interest to understand how augmented reality and simulation game technologies would influence students’ design processes during the activity. To measure student performance, 34 architectural engineering students, 47 architecture students, and 27 civil engineering students were given the same design activity using an augmented reality–based educational game ...

Highlights

To make the best possible building design and construction decisions for a particular project, it is necessary for project team members to have an understanding of how the decisions that they make for their respective disciplines may affect other related disciplines
In an attempt to prepare students in the building design and construction disciplines for careers in this type of integrated work environment, this paper presents the findings from research conducted over multiple semesters to determine the benefits that augmented reality and simulation games can offer for building design education
For all formats of the design activity, students were tasked with redesigning an existing exterior curtain wall on the Stuckeman Family Building located on the Pennsylvania State University’s campus in University Park, Pennsylvania. Their challenge was to define a new exterior wall concept that they felt would address sustainability better than the current design while still keeping in mind other performance factors, such as cost, constructability, and aesthetics. This particular building was chosen as an appropriate facility on which to base this exercise because, the students had not had substantial sustainability education in prior courses, many had opportunities to familiarize themselves with the chosen building through building tours to discuss characteristics that supported its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification and their general familiarity with the building owing to taking courses within the building

Summary

Introduction

To make the best possible building design and construction decisions for a particular project, it is necessary for project team members to have an understanding of how the decisions that they make for their respective disciplines may affect other related disciplines. The application developed, called ecoCampus, uses an augmented reality–based simulation game interface to allow users to visualize possible building design retrofit solutions in the context of an existing space and assess their design concepts to attempt to create the best possible building design solution (Ayer et al 2014a). In this prior work, 47 students were tasked with creating a new exterior wall design for an existing building to attempt to make it perform more sustainably while considering other performance factors, such as cost and constructability. This technology can help users view, navigate, and understand a virtual model more intuitively than other more traditional methods of communication (Azuma 1997; Furmanski et al 2002; Shin et al 2005)

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