Shared virtual reality for design and management: the Porta Susa project

The paper presents the implementation of a system of Shared Virtual Reality (SVR) in Internet applied to a large-scale project. The applications of SVR to architectural and urban design are presented in the context of a real project, the new railway junction of Porta Susa and the surrounding urban area in the city centre of Turin, Italy. SVR differs from Virtual Reality (VR) in that the experience of virtual spaces is no longer individual, but rather shared across the Internet with other users simultaneously connected. SVR offers an effective approach to Construction Data Model and Computer Supported Collaborative Work, because it integrates both the communicative tools to improve collaboration and the distributed environment to process information across the networks.