## 1 Introduction
For students to understand the concepts being presented to them, it is crucial that they are engaged. The more the student is engaged in academic work, the greater the level of knowledge achievement and general cognitive expansion. Information and communications technologies (ICTs) have transformed our society and, by extension, education [24]. The methods in which we communicate have been continuously adjusting to include characteristics such as interconnection, interaction and mobility. Several studies [25] show the opportunities offered by these emergent technologies, as they allow for a new type of reality where physical and digital environments, media and interactions are intermingled through our everyday lives. The use of interactive virtual systems, in particular, has begun to be used in professional and educational sectors, as it allows users to be close to the space recreated while letting a fast flow of the changes of the model made in real time [26]. Recent studies [27] focus on the adaptation of contents and their application using ICTs in the fields of architecture and urban design, focusing on the student, and their satisfaction and motivation. From an academic perspective, ICTs enhance the acquisition of spatial competences to study the visual impact of urban or architectural projects. Particularly, in architecture and urban design courses, it is necessary to evaluate whether a design is appropriate before being built, leading educators to reconsider how students represent the designs and learn to make this evaluation. Thus, it is important that students develop skills in various representation technologies, and can integrate the latest technologies in their design process, with the aim of better communicating their proposals, and to facilitate analytical thought on the spaces they design [28]. Throughout the history of architecture education, understanding and visualizing 3D spaces has been usually done by means of drawings and physical models instead of 3D models and virtual visualizations [29]. The use of these new methods is emerging because of generational change and the continuous development and improvement of technology [30]. New technologies are transforming the way these processes are carried out. The world that surrounds us is now becoming progressively digital, in particular for newer generations that are technologically savvy and familiar with the use of mobile devices and cloud computing services [31], and the integration of this new approach and paradigm in the specific context of the education and professional practice of urbanism is crucial. In education, mixed reality (MR) is a new approach that transforms the way students deal with information. MR technologies, namely virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), are used in architectural and urbanism research and practice to support the design process, to visualize design alternatives set in existing built environments, and to assess people's reaction to their living environment. Virtual reality (VR) is a combination of technologies used to visualize and provide interaction with a virtual environment. The variety of settings in which VR could be used to represent make it largely relevant to many areas in education. An important characteristic of VR is that it allows for multi-sensory interaction with the space being visualized. The combination of multi-sensory interactivity makes VR ideally suitable for efficient learning, as it benefits from the advantages provided by active learning through experiences, which is the main reason why we choose this system for this case study [32]. Virtual reality is broadly used in the industry and is starting to be more affordable for users. AR and VR share features like interaction, navigation and immersion [33]; AR may be defined as a VR variation in which the user can see virtual objects mixed or superimposed upon the real world. In contrast to VR, AR does not replace the real environment; rather, it uses the real environment as a background.