Real Virtualities - Architecture 2.0

The Institute of Architecture and Design, TU Vienna has bought a virtual island in Second Life (SL) in order to use it in a design course (5 ECTS). The goal was to introduce students to new ways in which computers in a web based network like SL can be used to generate designs by using end user scripting within a virtual 3D environment. After a short introduction into the basics of SL and to the rules and conditions of multi-user virtual environments (MUVEis) the students worked within that kind of spatial software as a place and as hyper media. The main focus of this paper is to stress and to describe the differences of the studentis results compared to common architectural design courses.