This paper reports on current research into the development of an interactive visualisation tool for postgraduate research students. The aim of the research is to construct a virtual environment that allows students to navigate ideas, which they can then relate to conceptual structures. V. E.N.I.C.E offers users a virtual learning environment, which is at once a concept map, a file manager, and a memory palace. Modelled loosely on the infrastructure of the medieval city of Venice the application encourages users to build metaphorical relationships between conceptual islands of ideas, that are separated by canals, but linked by bridges, which in turn lead to further islands. On each island the user constructs a memory palace, which acts as a repository for data associated with a single idea. The palace is located within a confluence of discursive pathways that allow the student to position, affirm, challenge and expand upon a line of related argument.