Reading6 Towards embodied architectural perceptions Q&A

Since Vitruvius, architects have always undergone years of training in traditional modes of architectural communication, such as physical small scale models and orthographic drawings. 

Q1. What are the limitations of these methods?

Today, advances in digital deign and fabrication technologies have enabled a more immersive and accessible means of architectural perception.
Examples have entered popular culture via television programs and YouTube videos. These include:

1) VR (Links to an external site.) for clients to perceive their new homes before they're built and make an informed decision about how the perceived space feels: Your Home Made Perfect (Links to an external site.)

2) 1:1 scale plans enable clients to walk onto/into their homes and see how changes in layout may effect how they use the space: Renovate Don't Relocate (Links to an external site.)

3) Finally, the fly-through that we looked at last week offers some degree of access but had issues that we discussed. The same project has been physically developed at 1:1 so that users can explore the physical site and how they might use a space before anything is installed:Hospital of the University of Penn
Question: Which process do you think is most effective and why? How could this be improved further?

1. There is an old saying that seeing is believing.  Vr technology is undoubtedly very efficient and can give people an intuitive and real impression.
     I think this VR is the future direction of interior design. No matter how high the designer's ability is, it can't be displayed to customers intuitively. For customers who do not have relevant architectural knowledge, this is just a piece of paper painted with patterns. This is why the current architects can't report their projects without renderings.
      I think that with the development of technology, the current limitations of VR technology are mainly equipment problems. The clarity of existing consumer products is not enough to give users a good experience. People who are used to high-definition picture quality may get dizzy. I can not wear Vr glassed more than five minutes, otherwise, i will feel dizzy as if  just got off the roller coaster.

     I think that VR is the most effective method considering the cost. For customers, the VR device breaks through the time and geographical limitations, and they can see a model room thousands of miles away from home to meet their psychological needs. For architects or developers, VR can reduce costs of building model rooms. And the decoration styles can be varied and adjusted according to the different preferences of customers. Units can also be rich and changeable. These are things real houses couldn't do before.
     And I think the most important point is that VR cooperates with the Internet allow customers to become amateur designers (regardless of whether they are good or bad). There are many mature vr virtual experience methods in China. The following video is an example. It can automatically identify the floor plan provided by the property developer. So that customers can decorate in the software by themselves. It is named Kujiale (Links to an external site.), and there are many similar products.

     It is just like players decorating their virtual home in games (Simulation or Animal Friends Association). The customers can choose the furniture, paint, decoration and so on in the website. These dimensions are real and can be modified, directly from various furniture manufacturers. And the software can directly render the final product as the video shows. It can also be used on mobile phones or Ipads.
Of course, the final results of this kind of design often have many problems, because ordinary people can’t fully consider their demands. But after the designers get the renderings that the customers designed themselves, architects can quickly understand the customer’s needs and improve on this basis. Maybe such modificiations can be done by AI in the future, so that ordinary interior design does not require a human designer.

2. After watching the video, i am deeply impressed by the use of heat map to show the usage in single room. I find it very interesting. But in general, I don't think this is a very effective method.
     Only 2d layout can't make people build a realistic and intuitive impression. Ignore the different effects of furniture height on reality leads to inaccurate judgment about the reailty feeling of renovation.
     Holographic projection can help it to convert 2d to 3d. But neither the cost nor the actual effect has a distinct advantage over VR. ( it may be pretty good for 3d vertigo patient like me) Such result will a bit like Ar, but Google's glass plan had been shut down serveal years ago. May be AR does not have a clear future right now.

     This technique is more suitable for research projects. In China, because many newly-built apartments or villas have the same layout in single project, developers often decorate two or three or them first as a model room to show to other potential customers. Therefore, large-scale developers will have their own design team to investigate the needs of the market to design the model room. In this kind of work, I think that research methods may be meaningful.

     The model room is like a decoration reference, giving customers experience how much furniture this layout can put in. But designers often use small-scaled furniture to give customers a sense of big space. There are even developers who artificially increase the floor height by half a meter when manufacturing model rooms in purpose. In actual life, there will not be such a simple and beautiful decoration, it is more like a fake advertisement.

3. A very effective method. Most modern architects may be dream of such opportunities.
     I think this is undoubtedly an excellent way to set design standards. Personal practice and interaction with professionals can quickly enhance the scientific of specific fields design.

    If we attend biology experiments in the biology building for one year, no doubt we would better design a new biology building. But obviously, this is not realistic.
    So, the disadvantages are very obvious, the huge demand for time and money. I believe there are not so many projects that can withstand such a large capital investment, let alone the requirement of time. Most projects have more urgent time cycles, and many times many projects are advancing simultaneously, and there is no energy to implement such method.
     I think that if the vr technology is more mature, it may be a compromise to build such a scene in a virtual environment so that people can simply simulate it.