The Virtual Architect
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AimArchitects and designers use a variety of real and imagined spaces in the design process. These may be different in nature and character, ranging from purely imagined and conceptual spaces, like narrations, diagrams and drawings, to very real and material spaces, like scale models and mock-ups. A way to describe these spaces is the concept of design spaces, as done by Rikard Stankiewitz,(1) by which each designer constructs his own personal design space as a constellation of operands. These constellations may be shared with other designers in a larger project. I propose that this concept can be developed further as ‘embedded spaces’ which have a more active and production function than design spaces.
The Virtual Architect is a test of such embedded spaces and their essential issues like the dependency of media, of a shared design environment and of an active use of design space through a definition of embedded spaces.
The Virtual Architect will define, construct and use a range of simultaneous synthetic spaces in a shared virtual environment. The single space will each have their own character, parameters and properties and will interact with other spaces through a specific set of rules and structures. Once these spaces have been constructed, data objects and operands will be embedded according to their function in the integrated design process. The Virtual Architect subscribes in this way to the discrete positions and containment that space has to offer.
ConstructionThe video prototype was produced by layering two video sources in the chroma key studio at CAVI (Center for Advanced Visualization and Interaction, Aarhus University). One was from a virtual model space on a Silicon Graphics Onyx computer and the other was from the real space of the ‘blue’ studio.
The first video source was generated by 2D data – text, numbers, grids, panoramic photographs etc. – that had been spatialized and embedded as transparent texture mappings on simple spheres. 3D objects from a modeling software were later embedded as the objects that were eventually to be created and manipulated in the simulation of the design process. All the data were scripted to perform certain tasks as change in position, rotation and transparency.
The second video source was generated by real video of actors in front of the blue screen. They performed a range of actions that would illustrated the use of immersive and augmented media in the design process.
The two sources from the real studio and the virtual space model were in the end layered to form one synthetic space, which would simulate the future embedded space. This layering was done by generating position data from the real camera in the chroma key studio and feeding these data to the virtual camera, which would recreate all movements in the virtual space model. The virtual scenes were then rendered in two frames delay and replaced the blue screen in the video from the real space.
The embedded space of The Virtual Architect was constructed by the following spatial categories:
a) System of reference, which contained the basic structures of the environment.
b) Semantic space, which contained spatialized notations, signs, words and metaphors.
c) Real space, which contained a photographic simulation of the real surroundings.
d) Formal space, which contained native 3-dimensional objects
e) Diagrammatic space, that contained dependencies between structure, operands and program.
f) Diagnostic space, which contained a mapping or notation of a real context.
g) Cyclic space, which contains an unfolded 360° panorama.
DiscussionThe architectural design process does – as do most other design processes – involve a large amount of data: surveys, reference material, building codes, catalogs of building materials, inspirational images and objects, old projects etc. The spatialization(2) and spatiology(3) of elements may apply to both very pragmatic observations as well as more subtle and abstract qualities of a site like levels of income, connections to neighboring communities or the formal direction of the buildings on the site. The Virtual Architect offers a way to interact with these data, to relate them to a given real context. It further offers a way to manipulate spaces and objects with the final aim to aide a design process.
What is unique in this situation is that the spatialization is based on a real location and not entirely invented from scratch(4) so the addition of properties to the data objects is related to a given context. Using the terminology of the geographer Sara Fabrikant, this creates a multi dimensional and multi spatial information space. This is done by connecting the location specific properties of the data objects with the simulated location in a geographical spatialization of non-spatial data. A practice that has already been established in the application TOPOS(5) by placing the notation, references and so forth where they belong – in the mapping of the real site.
Besides the construction of individual design spaces The Virtual Architect has a potential for collaboration and sharing. This could be done by distribution of the individual design spaces and by creating an environment for direct collaboration between a groups of designers. Data and gestures that are embedded in one design space may be exchanged with another design space and become part of a new spatial context. The Virtual Architect suggests the use of both augmented and immersive media to do this. Augmented media add potentials to the real space – in the case of Århus Harbor data objects (notations, signs, dimensions etc.) would be anchored to different physical locations and viewed by all participants in the collaborative design process through interaction. Immersive media recreate the real space through a real time spatial mapping of a site, which is embedded with data. This space may then be combined with other embedded spaces to contain an even wider range of data.
A combination of these two different kinds of media may be possible. It would create a collaborative environment were users of the augmented real space provide mapping information for the use in the immersive virtual space. This would further expand the use of space as a design tool since it would construct a passage for participants using different kinds of media at different locations. The Virtual Architect is in this way a video prototype, which proposes a scenario for the use of a collaborative design space by augmented and immersive media.
The specificity of space in The Virtual Architect is based on a critical distinction between a passive and an active character of the space – even though the space of The Virtual Architect has both characters. This critic may historically be placed in the early modernism around 1900 as described by Stephen Kern as the constituency of space, but has become increasingly present as new media have made it possible to create new interactive tools for the designer. Such an active use of space is especially notable in the architectural design process (Greg Lynn, Peter Eisenman, Sara Fabrikant, Stephen Kern etc.) The Virtual Architect is taking advantage of this distinction by constructing a shared environment with both types of spaces, giving the user the opportunity to interact with a whole range of spaces simultaneously and offer a common notion or framework for a collaborative design process, in the very fundamental specification of the different properties associated with the single spaces. These spaces are positioned in the same context or shared environment – in this case, a combination of a virtual and a real studio linked through camera tracking and chroma key technologies.(6)
The video prototype is a joint experiment between two overlapping PhD. projects (Thomas Leerberg and Tina Henriette Kristiansen), which both deal with the architectural consequences and possibilities of a computer embedded reality – both immersive and augmented.
On the video and image material, there is the video that was produced in CAVI and slideshows of the data that was embedded in the design space and of images from the process of constructing the video prototype.
(1) See the chapter Design Space.
(2) See Sarah Fabrikant’s term in the chapter Model
(3) See Michael Benedikt’s term in the chapter Structure
(4) Fabrikant, Sara Irina & Barbara P. Butterfield (2001), 'Formalizing Semantic Spaces for Information Access', in Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2001/91, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, p. 266 and Fabrikant, Sara (2000), 'Spatialized Browsing in Large Data Archives', in Transactions in GIS, 2000/4, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, p. 69-70
(5) See http://www.daimi.au.dk/workspace/index.htm
(6) Fabrikant, Sara Irina & Barbara P. Butterfield (2001), 'Formalizing Semantic Spaces for Information Access', in Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2001/91, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, p. 263-4.
© Thomas Leerberg & Tina Henriette Kristiansen, 2004
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