framework for the implementation of a virtual design studio model in ...

director, the tutors and some of the students. The interviews revealed
the effectiveness of the tools used in promoting creativity and
collaboration and encouraged the student to come up with unique and
innovative ideas that is based on creativity. The following sections
summarise the main themes and findings.
Findings
Six Zones approach
As part of the Porosity Studio‟s aim to immerse the students in Cardiff‟s
history and infrastructure, the participants were required to produce two
minute presentations regarding at least one of the zones visited during
the tour. Here, the research was cited rather than explained and the
presentations were delivered with clarity and academic precision.
Before the tour, the students were informed that Cardiff has two centres:
the city centre and the bay, both of which are intensely developed.
Between the two centres are the older residential areas and the newly
developed areas. In this “lost space” the building of more than 6,000
houses are planned over the next ten years. They were asked to
consider whether this was a small city or big neighbourhood; a large
district, or whether a neighbourhood even exists. Through the students‟
observation and interrogation they deemed it a district with
neighbourhoods and identified nine vacuums, holes in the city‟s fabric,
potential development sites, and opportunity spaces. Issues explored
amongst the students included the city‟s connection or disconnection
with the rest of the UK, fragmentation, healing the city, the splintering
urbanism, diversification, consolidation, and animation. It was here that
the metaphorical ideas of the students emerged.
Considering the impact of distinctive neighbourhoods nearby,
consolidation into larger neighbourhoods, the necessary requirements
for liveability, how small neighbourhoods could be encouraged to grow
and how a single district could be created with smaller sub centres, the
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