Ein Habitat für realvirtuelle Wesen
Team: Theresa Uitz, Peter Massin
Digitality has created two ideological worlds, one within (virtuality) and one outside(physicality). Architects traditionally design for the physical, but since the advent of digitality, they also design in the virtual. The physical is serious, and its design influences our environment significantly permanently. Virtuality, however, is playful and exuberant; its design is democratised and innocuous in terms of impact compared to the physical world. The boundaries between these two opposed worlds are beginning to dissolve through image-based technologies such as Mixed Reality (MR) or Augmented Reality (AR). The integration of various elements from the computer game industry (gamification), for example, enables an increasingly interactive representation of virtual architecture. Architects must therefore claim and occupy both realms, design and the new potentials of real-virtual setups in which digital and physical content superimpose.
Aims
In this design studio, the students developed an architectural design based on fictional narratives of virtual beings. The individual designs were divided into physically real and virtually real realms and combined into an overall architectural concept. The physical counterparts can act autonomously but unfold their total immersion in hybrid setups using Microsoft HoloLens 2 and AR apps on tablets.
Methods
In a theoretical framework, the students developed a habitat for various digital virtual beings over the semester. First, data was collected, and a catalogue of 3D assets was created. Through the analysis of the assets and a fictional narrative, architectural and spatial concepts were designed. The individual digital and physical architectures designed this way are combined in this exhibition to show habitats for real virtual beings. AR technologies and the physical elements are meant to be wirkungsaktiv in themselves. But the hybrid setup of the physical real design and the virtual superimposition expands and transcends the boundaries of both worlds.
Students: Stefan Hagenlocher, Sarah Weiler, Sören Gander, Samuel Fichtl, Lukas Wolf, Jo-Anne Ravinger, Maria Muigg, Christopher Walch, Sandro Gabardi, Lynn Federspiel, Hilal Filiz, Leon Fischer, Julia Brandacher, Julian Weirather, Himanshu Nirankari
