Social Virtual Environments: Opportunities and Workflows in Cultural Heritage and Education in Architecture

The paper analyses the use of social virtual environments in cultural heritage and education in Architecture. Specifically, it aims to trace state-of-the-art and possible developments of a web-based solution based on 3D models and diverse content to create virtual environments that remain rare in the disciplinary field of architectural digital representation and cultural heritage sector but widely used in education. The applicative scenarios presented, using Hubs by Mozilla and Spoke, were developed at the Department of Architecture and Design DAD of Politecnico di Torino. They comprise a series of experiences in communicating didactic activities on the TeleArchitettura TA platform and some collaborations with various museums in Italy.