Gone from architecture professor Stacy Norman's third-year studio this spring are the physical models, drawings and boards traditionally used to create and present design ideas.

In their place are state-of-the-art computers, modeling and animation software, video cameras and projection screens. The students have relied entirely on electronic tools.

"They're really beginning to think of digital as a new medium, particularly for presentation and communication," Norman said. "I'm hoping it will also allow them to learn something about the design process."

Norman doesn't expect the profession to go totally digital, but architects can use both digital and traditional tools to test ideas and investigate different aspects of a project.

"The digital tools allow us to see it in a new way that we probably weren't seeing with the physical model," he said. "Hopefully it allows us to not make some mistakes when it comes time to actually build the project. Anything that gives us another opportunity to test the idea is helpful."

The students in Norman's special digital studio had to design an urban satellite architecture school and community outreach center for a site in downtown Philadelphia.

They have tried to find ways to seamlessly blend still images, animation, video and other tools for more interactive, Web-style design presentations.

Some of the students have experimented with compositing, in which they videotape people and superimpose them into a digital rendering of a designed space.

The studio has included work with modeling software such as Form-Z and Alias Studio Tools, plus Adobe Premiere for film editing and compositing, and animation and Web design tools such as Flash, Dreamweaver, Go Live and Live Motion.

Resources of Ball State's Visualization, Imaging and Animation (VIA) Lab also have helped the class.

Students have been presenting their designs for critique to remote audiences across campus via live interactive media.

The actual reviews have taken place on the Architecture Building's ground floor, with students' digital images projected onto a special six-by-nine-foot wall.

At the same time, the reviews have been broadcast to a station on the Architecture Building's second floor and to a projection screen in the Art and Journalism Building. Audiences at those sites have been able to critique the presentations as they have occurred.

The reviews also have been shown on Ball State's Video Information System (VIS) and on the World Wide Web.

Such interactive online presentations can benefit the profession as architectural firms work with clients and offices around the country and the world, Norman said.

The technology allows a person on a remote computer to rotate and manipulate a designer's digital models and to make notes on them while talking with the designer. Improved broadband connections make that interaction possible.

"It's a way you can begin to collaborate without using the telephone, and it's a video feed in real time," Norman said.

Next fall he hopes to try an online studio design collaboration with a university in Hong Kong.

(Note to Editors: For more information on this story, contact Stacy Norman at (765) 285-2261 or fnorman@bsu.edu.)