Português
The initiative “Artificial Realities: Virtual as an aesthetic medium in architectural ideation”, is an opportunity to strengthen the relationship between ISTAR (Information Sciences, Technology and Architecture Research Centre, ISCTE-IUL) and the Virtual Reality Lab (NMBU- Norwegian University of Life Sciences). Both universities will join to share expertise in the field of Virtual Reality.
“Artificial Realities” is framed by the confrontation between rationality and efficiency related to virtual technologies applied to the architectural design process. The experience of architectural space and the state of contemplation and delight of the architectonic exercise will have a digital materialization. Since the fields of research of both groups coincide, ISTAR and NMBU will work together this core theme. By the end of the term, the results will be shared by publications.
Thus, the initiative will explore the ways in which virtual reality technologies can enable: i) designers to create immersive spaces that drive the users to escape to other realms in cutting-edge aesthetic experiences, ii) final-user/citizens to be engaged in urban design discussions. In this exploratory field, ISTAR want to be part of the international networks of researchers, being NMBU a partner of excellence to build a strong partnership through mobility programs, sharing labs and equipment and joint research tasks.
The project kick-off will be an international exhibition coupled with a one-day symposium, selected to be an Associated Project of Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2019, hosted by ISCTE Architecture School and organized by ISTAR on the 14th-18th of October 2019.
Today, concerning the field of architecture, typical VR applications’ utilizations are wide, from design itself, construction and project’s communication as well as collaborative decision-making. In the last couple of years architectural design has seen a resurgence of projects using mixed, virtual and augmented reality technologies driven by the low cost of headsets, higher resolution and field of view and so virtual reality is back! A high diversity of devices and systems have been developed in laboratories, and, in a few studios or firms like KPF and SHOP architects for example research labs were created to benefit from those technologies.
In user studies the potentials of VR and AR applications in term of ideation, collaborative design , building management and design education are well documented. In landscape architecture research, VR has recently seen its first steps as a tool to improve collaborative environments. Existing studies focused either on the benefit of VR for students to understand structure and construction, on the comparison of different VR systems, on the implementation of a new working environment or framework for designers, on the evaluation of remote design collaboration, or on the integration of VR in the curriculum for design courses at architecture schools.
We envisage the bilateral relations suitability as follows:
_ Follow-on activities and supporting actions will be planned as part of the project;
_ Joint research tasks will result on papers comparing the technological advancements in both countries and sharing expertise;
_ Researchers and students’ exchange: researchers from both institutions and PhD students' short stay in both Portugal and Norway is planned to promote the exchange of knowledge and the acquisition of new skills;
_ Joint Research Projects: knowing that AR and VR are EU strategic we want to build a strong partnership and share work methods that make it easier to build international consortiums. Also, in the scope of participatory and co-design research common research goals will be devised;
_ To create an online community/group that makes easier for students and professors to share knowledge and information on the AR, VR.
| Research Centre | Research Group | Role in Project | Begin Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ISTAR-Iscte | -- | Partner | 2019-09-10 | 2019-09-10 |
| Institution | Country | Role in Project | Begin Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU) | Norway | Partner | 2019-09-01 | 2020-08-31 |
| Name | Affiliation | Role in Project | Begin Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sara Eloy | Associate Researcher (ISTAR-Iscte); | Global Coordinator | 2019-09-01 | 2020-11-30 |
| Nancy Verónica Morgado Diniz | Assistente Convidada (DAU); | Researcher | 2019-09-01 | 2020-03-03 |
| Fábio Costa | -- | Research Assistant | 2019-09-01 | 2020-03-13 |
| Joana Gomes | -- | Research Assistant | 2019-09-01 | 2019-12-31 |
| Nuno Silva | Professor Auxiliar Convidado (DAU); Professor Auxiliar Convidado (DCSE); Associate Researcher (ISTAR-Iscte); | PhD Scholar | 2019-09-01 | 2020-11-30 |
| Reference/Code | Funding DOI | Funding Type | Funding Program | Funding Amount (Global) | Funding Amount (Local) | Begin Date | End Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FBR_OC1_020 - ISCTE | -- | Contract | EEA Grants - Fund for Bilateral Relations - Portugal | 12172 | 12172 | 2019-09-01 | 2020-08-31 |
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| Year | Output Type | Name | Description | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Art Installation/Work | A robotic dance | This project presents an Augmented Reality (AR) simulation of the flight of drones when assembling bricks to construct a wave-like wall. The performance of the robotic building process is visualized by using the simulation of the construction with an AR optical see-through device (Microsoft Hololens). Besides the technical function of drones while constructing the wall, the study aims to explore the aesthetic means of AR to simulate a building process and analyze the consequences it has to architecture design. The sense of realness is given not by photorealistic representation of the built wall, which uses basic graphic design, but by the position of the virtual wall and the surrounding real elements that allows the wall to continuously grown without touching any real element. The audio stimuli that accompanies the visitor all the way when using Hololens, referring to a drone’s flight, empowers the feeling of realness. The study discusses the potential of Artificial Realities, namely AR, to transport the user to a new world and the possibilities brought by these systems to the communication and interaction between humans and the devices. The robotic dance performed by the drones and experienced through AR enables a new experience of space and time which, when used during the architecture ideation stages, enhances a creative freedom without the boundaries of (real) reality. This project acts as a discourse framed by the confrontation between the rationality and efficiency of a construction assembly done by drones and the aesthetic and poetics related to an animated simulation by virtual technologies applied to the architectural design process. | Sara Eloy, Nuno Silva |
| 2019 | Art Installation/Work | A quasi-real virtual reality experience: point cloud navigation | In this project you can navigate in a point cloud by using an immersive reality device. The project aims at exploring the possibilities brought by recent technologies to visualize in a quasi-real way an existing building survey. To do so a 3D scan survey was performed to an existing building and the resulting 3D point cloud model was used in an immersive Virtual Reality (VR) environment during the rehabilitation design for an existing building. The use of immersive VR to visualize point clouds enables a type of experience of the “real” building not possible by any other mean. Indeed, VR provides designers with an incredible source of authentic building elements that allows them to have a quasi-real experience of the building. The visualization of such point cloud in immersive VR enables to transport designers to a new dimension where not everything from the existing building has a place but just the main essence of it levitating in a virtual world. With this project we want to discuss two recent technologies that are useful for the ideation stage in architecture design, 3D laser scanning and Immersive Virtual Reality, namely for interventions on existing buildings. Nowadays, after a reflection of the various aspects that have progressively made obsolete the traditional surveying methods, there are fundamental questions: Can the point clouds bring more to the architects than traditional surveying technics when designing interventions in existing buildings? How can the immersive VR visualization of the resulting point cloud help when architects are designing interventions in existing buildings? | Sara Eloy, Nuno Silva, Joana Gomes |
| 2019 | Other Event | Exhibition Artificial Realities, Virtual as an aesthetic medium in architectural ideation | -- | Nancy Diniz, Sara Eloy, Nuno Silva, Fábio Costa, Joana Gomes |
| 2019 | Conference | Symposium Artificial Realities, Virtual as an aesthetic medium in architectural ideation | -- | Nancy Diniz, Sara Eloy, Nuno Silva, Fábio Costa, Joana Gomes |
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With the objective to increase the research activity directed towards the achievement of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the possibility of associating scientific projects with the Sustainable Development Goals is now available in Ciência_Iscte. These are the Sustainable Development Goals identified for this project. For more detailed information on the Sustainable Development Goals, click here.
