How can we use immer­sive Virtual Reality and embod­ied loco­mo­tion inter­faces to to design more  cost– and space-efficient solu­tions for effec­tive pre­sen­ta­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion of archi­tec­tural designs and ideas? 

Our over­all goal is to iter­a­tively design and eval­u­ate a novel embod­ied VR system that enables users to quickly, intu­itively, and pre­cisely posi­tion their vir­tual view­point in 3D space and nav­i­gate through the space while free­ing up both hands for inter­ac­tion with the envi­ron­ment and more nat­ural com­mu­ni­ca­tion using ges­tures (e.g., with stake­hold­ers and col­leagues during a design review session). 

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Vancouver offices of Perkins + Will, we con­duct a project aimed at design­ing and eval­u­at­ing a novel loco­mo­tion system that addresses these prob­lems and enables users to more effec­tively and nat­u­rally nav­i­gate through and expe­ri­ence an archi­tec­tural project prior to its con­struc­tion. Our project  involved qual­i­ta­tive research inter­views and focus groups to out­line system require­ments and gain feed­back from Perkins + Will on the system design, to inform the iter­a­tive design and improve­ment of the system. Finally, we will assessed the system using mixed meth­ods based upon the require­ments and stake­holder feed­back. The result­ing move­ment system will allow Perkins + Will and other archi­tec­ture com­pa­nies to begin using IVR for design review, per­mit­ting them improved com­mu­ni­ca­tion of their design ideas to them­selves and their clients. Ideas pre­vi­ously dif­fi­cult to describe using non-immersive 2D visu­als may be better under­stood and accepted, and hidden prob­lems that arise during the con­struc­tion phase may be more appar­ent and avoid­able. Consequently, the result­ing reduc­tion in con­struc­tion costs asso­ci­ated with on-site mod­i­fi­ca­tions and increased archi­tec­tural qual­ity can result in better archi­tec­tural design out­comes for future occu­pants. Simultaneously, our research will improve our under­stand­ing of the fun­da­men­tal processes involved in human per­cep­tion of self-motion, result­ing in improved 3D user move­ment inter­faces for use in IVR.

Below is a first project video (thanks to a great stu­dent team from IAT344: Linda Nguyen, Danny Blackstock, Jason Chen, and Justin Poon!)

Jake Freiberg who was a key player on this project — below is a link to his Master’s thesis defense talk on “Design Representations in Architectural Practice” and his latest poster 

Click to view Poster

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