Sitting on the backseat of an Uber, on our way back from an under-construction site of the COOK COUNTY CENTRAL CAMPUS HEALTH CENTER, we found ourselves in a discussion with Erik Andersen from Forum Design, about how Architecture as a profession was practiced in his time. He explained that what was once done using drafting boards and parallel bars, with pen and ink and ammonia prints is now certainly being done using the new mediums for the better communication of design. The field of Architecture is seldom restricted to designing edifices. He introduced us to MU-Dai which aims at user-centered design to develops applications for deriving design solutions and Uplift Data Partners which uses drones to analyze and deliver data insights to clients across multiple industries of construction and real-estate.
Lesson : Eventually, it all accounts to the experience that the user has in this designed space.
The big shift in the role of a designer is the need to have a critical lens toward decision-making through the appropriate use of technology to solve problems. What we learnt from firms like Stantec, is that they created a prototype model and built a part of their healthcare project proposal to derive design solutions based on what the nurses would experience in that space. While after speaking to Randy Guillot, Principal at Gensler Chicago, about their method of deriving design solutions, he said that they used modelling softwares that support Virtual Reality. He gave us an example of how they would reduce the expenses of making a prototype model and replace it with the use of Virtual Reality models and send their project file to their client in China. This would help the client to be cost effective with the budget as building the prototype would have been an expensive affair. Perhaps, the number of changes to be made in the design would also be hampered and restricted.
Virtual Reality Augmented Reality
This discussion got me thinking about the potential of exploring design through Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). Wondering what each of them meant and if there was an overlap of the two at some instance, I tried to understand the implications. Virtual reality (VR) is an artificial, computer-generated simulation or recreation of a real-life environment or situation. It immerses the user by making them feel like they are experiencing the simulated reality firsthand, primarily by stimulating their vision and hearing. On the other hand, Augmented reality and virtual reality are inverse reflections of one in another with what each technology seeks to accomplish and deliver for the user. Virtual reality offers a digital recreation of a real-life setting, while augmented reality delivers virtual elements as an overlay to the real world.
Certainly, there is a great potential of involving new technology based on Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in every stage of a project. Indeed, the merger of the physical and virtual worlds is the most exciting and the approach to Architecture and its allied fields is never going to be the same again!
#STANTEC #GENSLER #FORUM STUDIO #VIRTUAL REALITY #AUGMENTED REALITY
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