This paper details a series of collaborative, immersive Travelling Studios held in Nanjing China focused on designers working in an international context of rapid urbanisation, hyper density, cultural and industrial heritage preservation and urban renewal.

The design studios were both cross disciplinary, involving masters of urban design, planning, architecture and landscape architecture students, and cross cultural, involving students studying in our faculty from Ecuador, China, Venezuela, Chile, Iran, Japan, and Australia along with Chinese students from Nanjing University.

The methods adopted in the studios encouraged students to not just use, but push the boundaries of design and communication technology – exploring new and innovative ways of collaborating and thinking about cities through engagement with big data, performative modelling, emerging Chinese social media such as Baidu, QQ cloud and WeChat, and through exploration of cutting edge, low cost, immersive virtual reality technologies (Google Cardboard).

Equirectangular image projection rendering technology allowed the students to produce immersive virtual reality visualisations, previously only possible using high cost hardware, to test how their propositions would feel as a human inhabiting the space of their design. They also took ‘photo spheres’ (spherical photos) at site visits, visits to cultural buildings and cultural exchanges, capturing the student learning experience which became a major component of the final exhibition and Google Plus Community site: http://goo.gl/4nUvEr.

By totally engulfing students in the use of emergent technology, alternate design approaches, and radically different cultures in an immersive ‘studio steamer’ learning environment, students absorbed new knowledge and soaked up new skills preparing them for future practice in an increasingly urbanised and global work environment.

These studios make a substantial contribution to design educators, providing valuable insights and methods for future studio teaching that influence, motivate and inspire students to learn in an international context.