  Web 2.0 is beyond a jargon describing technological transformation: it refers
to new strategies, tools and techniques that encourage and augment informed,
creative and social inter(actions). When considered in an educational context,
Web 2.0 provides various opportunities for enhanced integration and for
improving the learning processes in information-rich collaborative disciplines
such as urban planning and architectural design. The dialogue between the
design students and studio teachers can be mediated in various ways by creating
novel learning spaces using Web 2.0-based social software and information
aggregation services, and brought to a level where the Web 2.0 environment
supports, augments and enriches the reflective learning processes. We propose
to call this new setting Design Studio 2.0. We suggest that Design Studio 2.0
can provide numerous opportunities which are not fully or easily available in a
conventional design studio setting. In this context, we will introduce a
web-based geographic virtual environment model (GEO-VEM) and discuss how we
reconfigured and rescaled this model with the objective of supporting an
international urban design studio by encouraging students to make a
collaborative and location-based analysis of a project site (the
Brussels-Charleroi Canal). Pursuing the discussion further, we will present our
experiences and observations of this design studio including web use
statistics, and the results of student attitude surveys. In conclusion, we will
reflect the difficulties and challenges of using the GEO-VEM in the Design
Studio in a blended learning context and develop future prospects. As a result,
we will introduce a set of key criteria for the development and implementation
of an effective e-learning environment as a sustainable platform for supporting
the Design Studio 2.0.
