12 Essays on

Reth

inkin

g Sm

art Desig

n

Sensing Architecture

11 Essays on

Rethinking

MARIA LORENA LEHMAN

Report 2

ARCHITECT

URAL TECH

NOLOGY

11 Essays on

Reth

inkin

g A

RC

HIT

ECT

UR

AL T

ECH

NO

LOG

Y

2

11 Essays on

Rethinking A

rchitectural T

echnology

Report 2Maria Lorena Lehmanwww.sensingarchitecture.com

2008-2014 Maria Lorena Lehman | SensingArchitecture.com | A division of MLL Design Lab, LLC

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright 2008-2014 by Maria Lorena Lehman. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owner, Maria Lorena Lehman. The author and publisher have used their best efforts in preparing this book and the instructions contained herein. However, the author and the publisher make no warranties of any kind, express or implied, with the regard of the information contained in this book, and specially disclaim, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for any particular purpose.

NOTICE OF LIABILITY

In no event shall the author or the publisher be responsible or liable for any loss of profits or other commercial or personal damages, including but not limited to special incidental, consequential, or any other damages, in connection with or arising out of furnishing, performance or use of this book.

TRADEMARKS

Throughout this book, trademarks are used. Rather than put a trademark symbol in every occurrence of a trademarked name, we state that we are using the names in an editorial fashion only and to the benefit of the trademark owner with no intention of infringement of the trademarks. Thus, copyrights on individual diagrams, illustrations, trademarks and other images reproduced in this book are retained by the respective owner.

SAVE AND PRINT

It is the intention of the author, Maria Lorena Lehman, that this book be saved, printed in its entirety. Feel free to save and print this publication by saving the PDF file to your computer and printing it for reading purposes. If you have any questions about how you may save and print this publication, please contact the author.

Contents

Page

5 About

6 Introduction: 11 Essays on Rethinking Architectural Technology

7 1 A New Way to Visualize Architecture: The Holograph

8 2 Implications of a 3D Printed House

9 3 How Touch Technologies Yield More Personalized Responsive Architecture

10 4 Using Sensory Design with Tracking Technologies to Promote Health

11 5 How the Emotiv Epoc Headset May Lead to Environment Mind Control

12 6 How 3D Interactive Vision Can Impact Architectural Design From an Augmented Reality Museum to Virtual Objects

14 7 How CAVE-CAD Can Improve Your Architectural Design for Your Occupants

16 8 Get Design Insight from Roomba-Embedded Building Air Quality Maps

17 9 When Lighting Interiors Hurt, it Impacts Your Buildings Effectiveness

19 10 More Efficient Building Systems Where RFID Antennas Can Communicate with HVAC Ducts

21 11 Can This Multi Touch Interactive Table Help Architects Work Smarter?

5Maria Loren

a Lehman

Founder of S

ensing Archi

tecture

About

Sensing Architecture is created by Maria Lorena Lehman, a designer, author, and researcher from the United States. Maria holds a Bachelor of Architecture with Honors (BArch, 1998) from Virginia Tech and a Master in Design with Distinction (MDesS, 2004) from Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

In her role as an Associate at a notable architecture firm, Maria worked on numerous award-winning architectural projects. Additionally, she has also received a wide-range of scholarly honors. Maria Lorena Lehman has served

as an instructor and returning critic at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Currently, her research focuses on links between the human sensory system and new technology for architectural design.

You can learn more in the Biography of Maria Lorena Lehman

6Introduction

11 Essays on

Rethinking

Architectura

l

Technology

Architectural technology is constantly evolving, and as an architect, your job is to design innovatively bringing the best in beauty, comfort, functionality, and happiness to your building occupant. Thus, the following is a grouping of articles to help you do just that with architecture technology.

From new ways to visualize architecture, to new ways to 3D print architecture, the following articles will help you see how technology can help architectural design. Its not just about knowing of the latest technological toy available, its about understanding how that technology can add value to your building designs.

So, with that in mind, please read over the following articles to better understand leading-edge concepts and strategies that use architectural technology.

7There is a new way to visualize architecture and communicate its design. It is a new method which comes in the form of the holographic architectural representation system. Now, you may be wondering what that all means so before I go any further, have a look at the following video so you can see first-hand how holographs are changing the way architecture can be presented and communicated. See if you can spot the advantages to having such a holograph presentation system.

Watch the video here: http://vimeo.com/8078523

The advantages to the holographic presentation system are many. In fact, the following are just a few:

Easy to store and travel with

Full color: you can see materiality in the model

Fast to produce

Can integrate nicely with your workflow (can be created from Autodesk software)

Can use channeling feature: allowing up to four images on one holographic print

So with all of these advantages you may ask what does this way of printing holographs do to help architectural design? Well, for starters this holographic printing solution takes modeling to another level where greater accuracy can emerge. The thin surface that becomes a model in full color can reference the materiality of your project in great detail, which results in you being able to have more informative discussions and decision-making sessions with your clients and design team members. Another benefit of this holographic printing method is that it is very easy to replicate in other words you can leave a holographic model behind with your client, consultant, or project investor. All that is needed to see the holograph is a halogen or LED light source.

Earlier in this article I mentioned that these holographic prints can use a channeling feature. Well, the following video will show you how this works in action. Again, this is where up to four images can be shown on one holographic print.

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg1WsP_sdRg

And finally, just in case you may be interested in such a holographic printed model for your architectural design project you can have them made through a company called Zebra Imaging.

A New Way

to Visualize A

rchitecture: T

he

Holograph b

y Maria Lore

na Lehman

1

chadmagiera | Flickr

8Building construction is often an endeavor that takes a long time and costs a lot of money. Thus, advancements are being made that are changing the very nature of the way construction occurs. You see, by using robots to build houses, many benefits can be gained particularly when those homes are built using the Contour Crafting method. This method is where robots build homes layer by layer. Walls can be comprised of exotic shapes without the extra cost. And all of this becomes possible by scaling up 3D printing to the scale of buildings. (These are just a few of the highlights from the lecture shown below.)

To give you a better idea of what I am describing to you above, please watch the following video of a TED talk which shows Behrokh Khoshnevis presenting the concept. He is a professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and is the Director of Manufacturing Engineering Graduate Program at the University of Southern California.

Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdbJP8Gxqog

This method of construction brings with it many advantages some of which hold implications for experience architectural design. As building geometries become easier to configure and manipulate (for less cost) our building landscape will begin to look quite different. Ironically, it is robotics that can give architecture a more organic feel and with this comes the possibility for architecture to take on a broader range of aesthetics, and possibly, functions.

The notion of changing an architectural design, by simply making changes to the architecture program that constructs the design is intriguing. This can provide for greater variety of architectural form, and can be used to better personalize designs for their occupants. Architects, of course, will need to design into the program that constructs such Contour Crafted architecture perhaps liberating some of the limitations that constrain architects today.

Implications

of a 3D Prin

ted House

by Maria Lor

ena Lehman

2

fdecomite | Flickr

9As we interact with buildings, we touch them. And by touching them, we usually get the building to respond in a manner that meets our needs. You can touch building features like doorknobs, flooring, handrails, wall switches,

doorbells, and windows. Yet, when you touch these building features you usually touch them in one way, to yield a one-size-fits-all type of response.

Well, touch technologies are now evolving, where sensors are being embedded in building features like doorknobs. And as a result, building doorknobs are becoming able to read not just that there is a touch, but that the touch was comprised of certain fingers.1 You see, with sensors, buildings will be able to read how you touch them taking behavioral gestures to a whole new level.

In fact, the following video will give you a great overview of just how touching technologies are emerging. As you watch the video, be sure to think of how such innovations can help your architectural designs.

Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4tYpXVTjxA

By distinguishing greater detail in touch, a larger touch vocabulary and accurate language emerges. As an architect, you can use this language to devise architecture that responds to its occupants in more customized ways. Thus, by creating opportunity for greater variation in the way occupants use their buildings a building will have more in-between states. This, of course, allows for greater personalization.

So, as you design your architecture, think of the different ways in which your occupant touches your building to accomplish or meet a need. Then think of how your architecture can respond in more personalized ways to your occupants touch. Really, your architecture is constantly interacting and engaging occupants and with new advancements in sensing technologies, you can begin to have your building read occupant wants in much greater detail.

Hence, we are left with an architecture of nuance where building features can sense occupant needs from much more subtle gestural cues. As technologies advance to make more of this possible, be sure to capitalize on such advancements, to help make your architecture more responsive and more personalized.

1 Nosowitz, Dan. Video: Touch-Sensitive Doorknobs Could Lock or Unlock with the Curl of a Finger. Popsci.com. May, 7, 2012.

How Touch T

echnologies

Yield More

Personalized

Responsive A

rchitecture

by Maria Lor

ena Lehman

3

stebulus | Flickr

10

Lately, many technologies are surfacing that help with the tracking of a persons physiological signals for health. Such a technology is sleep tracking technology which monitors heart rate, movement, and breathing. So, when a person lies in bed sleeping, data is being collected about the quality of that persons sleep.1

Yet, what can you, as an architect, do with such data to help your occupants? And can architecture be the go-between that pulls from data which tracks health, to emitting environmental stimuli which promotes health? Well, I say the answer to the latter question is yes, and for the answer to the first question: read on.

Just imagine if the two could work together: tracking health and promoting health. With tracking, you would find health problems, and with promoting you would treat and prevent health problems. Thus, to make this work, the tracking device and the architecture would need to communicate.

As the device detects shifts in the health algorythms of an occupant, the architecture could pull from this data to release just-in-time environmental stimuli to cater to the particular occupant need.

For example, a sleep monitoring device might detect an occupant tossing and turning in bed while trying to sleep at night. If the architecture could pull from that data (communicating with the device), sensory design could really help the architecture to interactively emit stimuli to prevent further sleep disturbances. Some architectural aspects which could be tailored might include the adjustment of temperature, lighting, sound, and even scent.

So I now ask you to think about how your architecture could be improved if it could communicate with a device within it. What would that communication need to be like in order to make for a successful architectural design response? And how would your architecture be better as a result of that communication?

1 Simonite, Tom. Sleep Sensor Hides Beneath the Mattress. Technology Review. November 9, 2011.

Using Senso

ry Design wi

th Tracking

Technologie

s to Promote

Health by Mari

a Lorena Leh

man4

jurvetson | Flickr

11

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to control your house or other environment with your mind? Well, advances in brain computer interfaces are beginning to make much of this a reality. You see, certain brain computer interfaces can feed off of the electroencephalograph (EEG) signals from your brain, to then translate them into commands that are sent throughout a given building.1

If you look for them, you will see that brain computer interfaces are beginning to surface take for instance the emotiv epoc headset which uses similar technology to what I described above, where this neural headset feeds off of the EEG signals from the brain.

But what does this mean for architecture?

For starters, the notion of control within environments will be going through a shift. As such brain computers as the emotiv epoc headset continue to be refined in their development, it may be possible to assert environmental decisions with less physical action and more mental reliance. This does seem to be great news for those who are physically impaired, as they could use such an epoc neuroheadset to engage with their environment more seamlessly.

Since the epic headset can allow its user to do things like arrange Flickr photographs according to emotion, just imagine what might be possible when incorporating transient environmental qualities into the mix.

What if when wearing such an epoc headset, you could change your environment with your mind by using your emotions. How would your house respond to you when you are feeling happy? And what might it do if you were to feel sad? Would the house then try to cheer you up with its happier lighting, sounds, or aromas?

Brain computer interfaces are certainly changing the face of interaction by allowing otherwise secondary aspects, like emotions, to surface more transparently into the decision-making realm. Really, emotions have always been a part of decision-making in human life, but now with neuroheadsets we will be able to see the real cause-and-effect relationship between emotion, decision-making and consequence. all three of which could contribute to better design and usability for occupants within their environments.

1 Rowe-Graham, Duncan. Control Your Home With Thought Alone. New Scientist. July 5, 2011.

How the Em

otiv Epoc He

adset May L

ead to

Environmen

t Mind Contr

ol by Maria Lor

ena Lehman5

12

3-D viewing of objects is something that many designers (particularly architects) are always in search of doing better for, building design models that take the form of physical prototypes or even virtual prototypes (as is built within the computer using digital media) most often become limited in what they can tell a designer about their designs.

But what happens when a 3-D viewing system is developed that can scan a real-life object and put it on display so that, as a person walks around it, they are viewing it in real life? Or, what if a 3-D system could present your digital model again, so that one could walk around the model and view it just as if it was real-life? And then the real power comes in when you add interactivity to that model. Well, a group of students at Tsinghua University, in China, have designed just such a 3-D viewing system.

The beauty of a system like this is that you could have a combination of the best of both worlds: 1) a three-dimensional representation of a virtual model that you could walk around and interact with, and 2) an augmented reality model within which can be programmed functionalities that go beyond zooming or panning the model itself, but involve aspects about the models design that impact occupant experience through their senses.

I write this article in hopes to inspire such a merger between physical and virtual model-making, where augmented reality models for architecture can take on a three-dimensional interactive viewing system. That is, where the union between the physical and the virtual help with the design of buildings by allowing designers to see more than just what is on thveir surface (building skin and bones), but to be able to steer more deeply into the way they behave in relation to certain contexts.

How 3D Inte

ractive Vision

Can Impact

Architectura

l Design F

rom an Aug

mented

Reality Muse

um to Virtua

l Objects

by Maria Lor

ena Lehman

6

13

Application in Design: The Augmented Reality MuseumApart from the design process itself, such a three-dimensional viewing system may also contribute significantly to museum exhibit design where an augmented reality museum, for example, would be able to capitalize on such a fusion between the physical, the virtual, and the interactive. I would imagine that such a 3D interactive viewing system would make for some quite educational, cultural, and memorable museum visitor experiences. In such an example you can see how you not only would be designing with such a 3-D viewing system, but you could also be incorporating such a viewing system into some of your designs.

To do this, you must begin to think and ask yourself certain strategic questions.

For example, as you design, it is important to ask yourself about what type of architectural behavioral information would help you best to visualize the building design that youre working on. Would it be about the behavior of your buildings energy, light, motion, thermal properties, or other transient differences? Then, imagine how such behavioral information about the design will help to inform you toward your design decisions. It may help to first ask yourself what you are looking to discover with such an augmented reality model, and then you can strategize as to how to achieve what you want to discover if you presented it in augmented reality model form.

The merger between the virtual and the real is more than just about replicating a design idea just because you can. Instead, it can be about experimenting and testing ideas to see not only how they look, but also how they behave and feel.

14

Researchers at the UCSD division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) have developed innovative CAD (computer-aided design) software called CAVE-CAD that, when integrated with novel hardware to monitor human neurological and physiological responses, makes architectural design more efficient. CAVE-CAD also adds an important feature missing in conventional CAD: an ability to immediately experience the consequence of modifying design. Source: UC San Diego News Center, CAVE-CAD Software Will Help Mine Human Brain to Improve Architectural Design

This exciting latest development of CAVE-CAD means great things for the evolution of occupant-centered architectural design. While this instrument is used to measure occupant response to an immersive experience of an architectural building design decision, I see many other uses for such a development that can really help our profession as well as all people that experience architecture.

To give you a better idea of what this simulation/experiential tool can do, please watch the following video which will show you CAVE-CAD in action, while also explaining some of the research teams future plans for development: http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/archive/video/2011cave.html

As you can see, CAVE-CAD is a great instrument for testing architectural designs in terms of how occupants will be likely to experience them. As an immersive testing and design tool, it is possible to make design changes on the fly while simultaneously analyzing how an occupant would respond to such change. I particularly like that the aural environment that goes along with

the visual environment which can be tested simultaneously for an occupants experiential reaction. Its a great way to get inside the head of an occupant, and to get inside the design before its constructed so as to better understand how design decisions impact occupants.

While being immersed in CAVE-CAD, occupants might feel lost or overwhelmed, surprised or bored, or curious and happy.And if steps can be taken to delve into such occupant physiology, emotion, behavior, cognition, and even spirituality then CAVE-CAD can prove to be a very powerful tool for architectural design.

How CAVE-C

AD Can Imp

rove Your

Architectura

l Design for Y

our Occupa

nts

by Maria Lor

ena Lehman

7

Brain EEG

15

As you design your buildings using your own process, just imagine how you might like to test certain aspects experientially, going beyond the visual. By finding and developing a testing ground where you can fuse the different senses together into a virtual experience of a space, you will likely make better design decisions and will also be able to communicate your design better to future occupants.

And dont think that you need CAVE-CAD to do all of your testing for occupant experience. For example, you can set up virtual aural and visual simulations using your computer along with a projection screen and speakers. The trick is to devise a plan to study your occupants reactions: whether physiological, intellectual, emotional, behavioral, and/or spiritual.

For optimal results, keep track of what research materials and tools are becoming available to you as an architectural designer. Try to improve your designs for your occupants by better understanding not only your designs before they are built, but also by better understanding your occupants reactions to those design ideas. In following along this path, you will stand in prime position to boost your design process to yield higher quality design with less error.

16

So often, as an architect, attention is paid to the visual senses as masses, materiality, and even lighting are carefully chosen for a particular design vision. But how do you as an architect target more intangible things, like building air quality?

I read an article recently that describes one way to track patterns of building air quality changes within a room. You see, by using a sensor-embedded Roomba, researchers were able to map any detrimental changes in a rooms air quality as the Roomba traveled about its path. So, the next question becomes what to do with such a map?

First, I would say that air quality within an environment is quite important. And by understanding more about the quality of air within a rooms design, you may be able to spot leaks,off-gasing, or even toxins that invisibly impact your occupants health. While using the Roomba is a novel idea, it does invite one to think about what other devices within a room can track and monitor patterns that would otherwise go undetected during lifelong daily occupant use.

The key is to think about the aging process of a building, the changing needs of your occupant, or even the evolving surroundings of your built environment that may well affect the quality of its interior. Thus, your built designed environments need to be maintained and optimized for occupant health.

Thus, I invite you to consider what happens to your designed spaces once built? Do they maintain that healthy initial state that they had when they were first constructed? Do you or your occupants have a way to check the more imperceptible living conditions of that space while it is being inhabited? And how might you go beyond the Roomba solution described above, to make sure your design keeps up with your or your occupants standards?

Get Design

Insight from

Roomba-Em

bedded

Building Air Q

uality Maps

by Maria Lor

ena Lehman8

tr.robinson | Flickr

17

Have you ever thought about the significance of lighting in terms of how it affects your daily activities and your ability to perform them well? Lighting interiors can make a significant difference in carrying through the intent of how you want your building to function, whether it be a retail clothing store,

a hospital patient room, a residential design or a school classroom.

In In the following four examples, I will be presenting you with how lighting can make a significant difference in helping a building design to perform better and be more effective

Retail Clothing Store Design: Have you ever been within a retail clothing store where the clothes look so beautiful on the rack (as they are illuminated well there)? Then, you select your size off the rack and proceed to a dressing room to try them on. Low and

behold, it looks terrible because the lighting overhead in the dressing room is flickering, makes noise and/or distributing an improper color. Needless to say the sale was missed. Be sure to notice the good stores who get this right.

Hospital Patient Room: Within a hospital postoperative recovery room, there comes a point where it is important for the patient to engage in Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) various grooming activities. But for a recovering patient in the hospital who has been sick it can be a huge effort to go into the bathroom to engage in such activities. Now what if when looking in the mirror to groom, the lighting was poor? How do you think that would affect the patients mood, optimism toward healing, and general sense of feeling betteras they start off and end their day? Thus, there are key places where lighting interiors can make a very significant difference in healing.

At Home: Suppose an elderly person keeps their medicine at home in their kitchen, by their nightstand or perhaps in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Suppose there is improper lighting in one of these places at the time of day when this person goes to take their new medication. As they read instructions on the bottle, they misread and take the improper dosage amount. Thus, lighting interiors properly can have both subtle and serious consequences.

School Classroom: In a school classroom, improper lighting can actually affect learning like when the student is trying to read the chalkboard from different distances, or when they are trying to read their computer screen while sitting next a bright window, or perhaps while trying to watch a computer-based PowerPoint lecture that the teacher is giving. After all, if that student is sitting in a dark room watching a PowerPoint lecture, will they be able to see the notes that they are taking on their desk? Perhaps not unless

When Lighti

ng Interiors

Hurt, it Imp

acts Your

Buildings Eff

ectiveness by

Maria Loren

a Lehman9

Biscarotte | Flickr

18

they have their own computer glaring right back at them in the darkness. Thus, better classroom lighting interiors can help to boost classroom learning and perhaps even participation.

As you can see from the following examples, lighting interiors are important factors that contribute to how your space gets used, which results in not only how your building is perceived, but also in how well those that use it are able to do just that. Improper lighting can hinder so many aspects of what makes space functional. So as you design your next space, make sure you consider the nuances involved when it comes to good lighting.

What works for one space within your building may not work for another space within the same building. Much depends on the activity that goes on within a particular area at a certain time. Also, do not think about lighting interiors in terms of just trying to prevent lighting mistakes. You should also think of lighting as another design tool which can help you leverage your buildings effectiveness.

For example, consider how natural daylight spectrums filter into your interior spaces as your occupants need a certain amount of exposure per day since it affects their circadian rhythm. And of course, the circadian rhythm can be linked to sleep and wake cycles and can ultimately impact overall health. Another example of how lighting affects functionality.

So, I urge you to consider how your lighting interiors are impacting your occupants. How might you make them better? And how might you use them to leverage what your design already does best?

19

As current buildings make their way toward becoming interactive architectural environments that increasingly gain capabilities to adapt, you can begin to imagine how that kind of buildings communication system will act like a nervous system that travels throughout the building infrastructure. But you may ask yourself, just how might this wiring take place? And how can we prevent that communication infrastructure from being redundant both in the labor it takes to build, and in its ability to sync with dispersed sensors throughout the building.

According to the article entitled Turning HVAC into RFID,1 HVAC ducts are a very useful way to create a building wide antenna that can serve to help process incoming information from RFID antenna sensor networks that control various systems within a building. What this all means is that most of a buildings nervous system can go from being wired, to being wireless.

As was pointed out in the article, we have many systems within a building that work from sensors, including temperature control, fire and security systems. And while such wireless communication may prove to work very well for certain building needs, it may not quite work as well for others. But just as with any new technological ideas, there will be limitations and challenges. However, finding ways to make communication more efficient within smart buildings, is a step in the right direction.

Adding Functionality by Enhancing Your Buildings Nervous SystemToday many buildings are rather static, depending on their own occupants to make them operable by physically adjusting so many of their components. Yes, buildings today have an array of wired technologies which give them certain capabilities; but still, they ultimately depend mostly on occupant control points where an occupant must either go to a control device to make changes (like with a temperature thermostat), or be notified via some type of an alarm system (like a security system which may or may not be tied to a centralized call center to get help).

However, I think that we can take things much further, so that building communication systems do more than simply react with one-off solutions. For instance, what if a building system could use it sensors to detect patterns in occupants daily activities by analyzing multiple building systems at once (they could cross-talk) and then correlate those patterns with particular goals which an occupant (or architect) has specified? In this case, a building with an optimized nervous system could make better sense of those patterns to more efficiently and effectively make environmental changes for that occupant (or group of occupants) in real time.

More Efficie

nt Building S

ystems Whe

re

RFID Antenn

as Can Comm

unicate with

HVAC Ducts

by Maria Lorena

Lehman

10

20

Thus, bridging the gap between sensors and their central communication channels within a building by making more systems wireless will allow for increased opportunity by which designers can embed their sensors strategically to obtain necessary cues that might make an adaptive building work closer to its optimal potential. And, as with most wireless technologies, there will come a certain amount of added freedom for both the architect and their building occupants if designed well.

1 Dillow, Clay. (2010) Sensor Networks in Buildings Could Use AC Ducts as Huge, Building-Wide Antennas, Popular Science.

21

New interactive tools are surfacing to help architects do their job better. One such tool is a multi touch 3-D architectural application which can be used as both an interactive table device and a larger scale screen projection. While I can see such devices being helpful to architects for brainstorming, project reviews, coordination meetings, and client presentations, we really should ask is this just another cool device? Or, does it really help architects like you to do your job better?

Before we go on to talk further about the application technology, I think it best to show you a glimpse of what such multi-touch devices can do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAanod1F6bI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVJpDlhORxw

As you can see, 3-D visualizations are developing past solely working with still renderings or even scripted and locked in place animations which today mostly run as replays of camera movements that serve to walk someone through a space along a predesignated path. But what makes these new multi touch virtual reality environments even more helpful is that they give architects the ability to interact with their construction documents in new ways, that are a bit more interactive and intuitive as they are tools that can be used to answer possible questions that may arise or to spot potential problems that may need to be solved in real time during meetings or client presentations.

By making construction documents link to more comprehensive building models, they become a bit more of an immersive experience that not only helps architects see their designs better, but also helps them to explain them better as other members of their design team, consulting team and client teams seek to more fully understand the implications of certain design decisionsthus, preventing future problems that may arise.

Can This Mu

lti Touch Inte

ractive Table

Help

Architects W

ork Smarter?

by Maria Lorena

Lehman11

campuspartycolombia | Flickr

22

When presenting, such an interactive table or screen application might help clients or other reviewers to feel more in control as they travel through a space being able to question it in the places where they think it needs questioning. In turn, this helps by making them feel more confident if they like what they see and experience, all because this interface helps architects to better communicate their most complex of architectural visions.

Essentially, such new and interactive tools that can be used within both architectural working environments as well as architectural presentation environments are quite important to keep developing. For when designing a building, it helps when tools are optimized so that they help bridge the gap between architects, the unrealized building, and their clients helping them to make smarter decisions more quickly, prevent future problems from arising during construction, and ensuring that the client sees and is confident that they are getting what they want and need. Needless to say, I do think that there will be a bright future for such multi touch architectural design and presentation interactive tools. So what you think? How could such an interactive tool help you with your architectural design process?

Visit ArchStudioX to Learn More

2014 Sensing Architecture | A Division of the MLL Design Lab, LLC

LEARN MORECLICK HERE

Want to learn more?

If you enjoyed this book, and it helped youimprove your architectural design mindsetand skillset --- then just imagine what becomingan Elite Member of ArchStudioX can do to boostnot only your design projects, but your entire career.

If you enjoyed this book and it helped you im-prove your architectural design mindset and skillset then just imagine what becoming and Elite Member of ArchStudioX can do to

boost your architectural design potential.

ArchStudioXSensing Architecture Elite Membership

Want to learn more?

Visit ArchStudioX to learn more

Learn MoreClick here