The role of a city's collective memory in supporting cooperative urban design learning

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of how a city's collective memory can be accessed to support cooperative urban design learning in university-based education and training. We focus on how digital collective memory can be developed and evaluated in supporting urban design learning activities. Using Google Apps, a website was developed as a pilot virtual learning environment through which students can access 3D city models and urban design learning content. To evaluate the effectiveness of the digital collective memory on supporting cooperative urban design learning, an experiment was conducted in a real education setting. The result shows that the content of collective memory as accessed by the students has significantly contributed to the development of their group design tasks. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.