ARC3020Y F
Instructor(s): Lara Lesmes, Fredrik Hellberg
Meeting Section: L9105
Synchronous
Tuesday, 9:00am - 1:00pm, 2:00pm - 6:00pm

The Immersive Internet is a three-dimensional version of the current Internet powered by immersive technology such as VR and AR goggles – now rather clumsy and a bit hideous, but soon to be no different from a pair of spectacles and as widespread as the smartphone, in fact, expected to replace it within the coming decade . This research studio focuses on how Architecture and Media are becoming inseparable, and in particular how architects could shape spaces of and for media. In a 3D version of the Internet every web page is a room, building, street, or landscape. We do not scroll through, we walk through the Immersive Internet. And as the Internet becomes three-dimensional, it becomes also of architectural concern.

Spaces of Information Broadcasting are architecture in which complex sets of data are organised and broadcast in 3D space. This is not too different from what museums or temples have done for centuries. For example, when we enter a Cathedral we are presented with a space that is organised symbolically and narratively, as well as filled with imagery and data. At some point, architecture was a very efficient mass-media device, as it could bring many people together under the same narrative, but from the 19th century onwards radio and television broadcasting brought together numbers of people that no building in the world could ever compete with. The use of three-dimensional space in the telling of narratives was overshadowed by audio-visual media, and the bits of architecture built for broadcasting were mere support for the narrator or the footage shown. As immersive technology allows media to jump out of our speakers and displays, the broadcasting of information becomes, once again, spatial and therefore of architectural concern. While our screens offer a linear experience of narratives or datasets, spatial media provides a multiplicity of perspectives, the possibility to come close to individual elements while understanding them as part of a whole and registering them on a particular location within a larger context. We can zoom-in and get an overview without cutting the frame or turning the page. And we can make use of our brain’s great ability to process and store information in relation to form and space.

Our research focus will be siloed into two areas: Information Architecture and Information Representation.

Information Architecture is what we call buildings that require specific designs for the storing and/or displaying of data. While we will become aware of contemporary examples, we will emphasise the study of well known historical typologies from a new perspective: how the architecture is keeping information and making it available to the public. Gaining a historical perspective on architecture’s rise and fall as a media device in different cultures and contexts will help us project forward and envision the renewed role of space as communication interface.

Information Representation is what we call diagrams and graphics that make complex sets of information legible. At a time in which we have been given access to data at an unprecedented scale, the synthesisation of information has become a key communication tool.

Real-Time Engines will be our main tool to create and experience the worlds we envision. (more about this here)

The goal of the studio is to create spaces for information broadcasting that embrace the latent possibilities within emerging immersive media. Learning from the rich history of information-driven architecture, as well as the world of information graphics, we will shape spaces that are in flux, where the reading, writing, and broadcasting of information becomes one with the architecture around us.

Space Popular, as a practice, is deeply involved with these topics, with much of our work being concerned with shaping and regulating our inevitably technological future. For example, the Venn Room is a mixed reality film about remote togetherness via immersive media depicting a series of possible scenarios of virtual cohabitation in which issues of integration, interface, exposure, overlap, representation, storage or ownership in the augmented future of our domestic environments are put into perspective through everyday narratives. It shows how new architectural typologies emerge from the intersection of bricks and pixels and why architects should be ready to take this on as a design challenge in both the physical and virtual realms.

Other mixed reality experiences by Space Popular are: Value in the Virtual, which looks into the challenges of augmentation in urban environments and, in doing so, how we might have to rethink the scales with which we value architecture – since much of it will likely be virtual in the near future; The Wardian Case, using traditional mythology to show how objects and rooms are vessels to transport information in, taking place in the tapestry room of the Royal Palace of Milan; or Gate of Bright Lights, touching upon accessibility, in particular the element of the portal (analogous to the door or threshold) and how it will play a critical role in our augmented experience of the world.

Mixed reality films and experiences are our main tool of operation because they help us make simulations of the future available to the public. We believe this is important because it allows people to understand what is likely coming their way, raising their awareness and possibly even mobilising them to take action. As architects, while we spend a lot of time and energy on making buildings, we have also made part of our job envisioning future scenarios so we can be involved in shaping them from within, even before they exist, before they become a reality that we can design for. And this is what we hope we can inspire you to do by providing you the tools to create this kind of work as well as to shape this unusual type of career.

We will Design

• Virtual Spaces for Information Broadcasting
• Memory Palaces
• Roman Rooms
• Datascapes
• Immersive Diagrams

We will Make

• Diagrams for Spatial Data Visualization
• Drawings of Non-Euclidean Spaces
• 1:1 Prototypes in Social VR
• Films in Real-Time Engines

We will Research

• Data visualization (diagrams, infographics, ...)
• Information Architecture (museums, religious buildings, ...)
• Immersive Media (social VR, immersive films, metaverses, ...)

We will Use

• Twinmotion
• Unreal Engine
• Mozilla Hubs We will Need
• Computer (desktop or powerful laptop)
• Internet (good stable connection)