VuuA.Org: The Virtual Upperrhine University of Architecture [online]

In 1998, architecture schools in the three nation region of the
upper Rhine came together to undertake a joint design studio.
With the support of the Center for Entrepeneurship in Colmar,
France, the schools worked on the reuse of the Kuenzer Mill
situated near Herbolzheim, Germany.
The students met jointly three times during the semester and
then worked on the project at their home universities usng
conventional methods. This project was essential to generating
closer ties between the participating students, tutors and
institutions and as such, the results were quite positive. So
much so, that the organisers decided to repeat the exercise one
year later. However, it became clear that although the students
had met three times in large groups, the real success of a
co-operative design studio would require mechanisms which allow
far more intimate interaction among the participants, be they
students, teachers or outside experts. The experiences from the
Netzentwurf at the Institut für Industrielle Bauproduktion
(ifib) showed the potential in a web based studio and the
addition of ifib to the three nation group led to the
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development of the VuuA platform.