The drawing and perception of architectural spaces through immersive virtual reality

The technologies that have sought to intervene in the architectural drawing process have focused on the sense of sight, leaving aside the use of the hands and the entire body that together achieve more sensory designs. Nowadays, to the benefit of the draftsman, that ideal scenery in which sight, hands and body work holistically is returning thanks to Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR). The purpose of this research is to analyze the perception of two-dimensionally drawn spaces, the drawing of such spaces through three-dimensional sketches in IVR, and both the perception of 3D sketched spaces and those which are also modeled realistically in IVR. First and fifth year architecture students went through the four phases of the experiment: (a) the perception of a space based on 2D sketches, (b) real-scale 3D space drawing in IVR, (c) the perception of a space drawn in 3D in IVR, and (d) the perception of the same space realistically modeled in 3D in IVR. Through three questionnaires and a grading sheet, the data was obtained. The perception of two-dimensionally drawn spaces was high (70.8%), while the precision of a space drawn in an IVR was even higher (83.9%). The real or natural scale in which the spaces can be experienced in an IVR is the characteristic that was most recognized by the students; however, this and the other qualities did not allow for a reliable conclusion for a homogeneous perception of sensations within the virtual spaces.