I think at the heart of the Venus Project is: technological development and a resource-based economy (instead of the current monetary-based system). The technological advancement aims to fulfill every human being's needs: food, shelter, trasportation, health, energy and education - all of which are currently subject to costs. In our monetarist system, the more scarce or valuable these products become, the higher the price (profits) will be - and so the argument goes that the monetarist system stifles advancement and actively encourages scarcity. Most of the technology and resources to fulfill these needs are already availiable, but costs are a hinderance so a resource-based economy would be condusive to these goals (and has many other positive by-products).
Auroville is more concerned with the spiritual advancement of mankind - which may also be the outcome of the Venus Project once all mundane jobs are eliminated by technology. Officially, Auroville doesn't have any money in circulation but works on a debit basis. While there, we never walked round with many rupees - but we still had to buy things with an account number. The resource-based economy is all-or-nothing - and probably won't function until you are 100% self-sufficient as a civilisation.
The architecture looks similar to Auroville as well! White, curved buildings with palm trees!
www.thevenusproject.com See the other entries for pictures of Auroville.
