Interactive Virtual Reality Experience
Project Correl; an interactive virtual reality experience demonstrating immersive technology for architecture Launched at MUAC, Mexico City
Project Correl is a collaborative experiment in multi-presence virtual reality (VR) illustrating the development of complex assemblies inside virtual space. A shared, digital extension to our physical reality that proposes a dynamic new relationship between human creators and machine logic. Powered by Unreal Engine, Project Correl demonstrates the possibilities of emerging immersive technology in architecture.
Founded in 2014, Zaha Hadid Virtual Reality Group (ZHVR) is working to shape immersive VR technology for architectural design, including real-time modelling and visualisation tools. ZHVR is focussed on the production of VR as a design tool and researching the potential of specific technologies that can enhance the architectural design process.
Partnering with leaders in the development of immersive software and hardware technologies: Unreal Studio, HP Virtual Reality Solutions, NVIDIA and HTC VIVE, ZHVR combined room scale tracking with high powered graphics capabilities to develop Project Correl for Zaha Hadid Architects ‘Design As Second Nature’ exhibition at the University Contemporary Art Museum (MUAC) in Mexico City.
Project Correl invites visitors to the exhibition to collaborate in real-time, experiencing scale and digitally augmented design to collectively build a virtual structure that will grow over the coming months. Progressive iterations of this digital structure will be captured and exhibited in the gallery as scaled 3D-printed models.
Visitors will be immersed in the virtual environment with up to three others at the same time, moving freely in digital space to select, scale and place components according to their preference and a dynamic set of rules assigned to act depending on the chosen scale of the component. “This is possible thanks to Unreal Studio, the free real-time technology that helps architects visualize our most creative ideas,” explains Helmut Kinzler, head of ZHVR.
While the virtual construction components and the guiding principles informing the placement algorithms have been designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, the scale of the components and their position of placement is entirely up to the visitor.
Individually placed components will soon disappear from the VR space unless they are connected with others to form a cluster. The more components connected together within any cluster, the longer it will exist in the VR space. Every cluster or component connected directly to the primary structure within the virtual space will remain as a permanent element of the design.
The emerging virtual structure created from the accumulated placement of components acts as a collective memory and is defined by principles that echo systems of growth evident in the natural world, an on-going sector of research by Zaha Hadid Architects.
Project Correl presents visitors to Zaha Hadid Architects ‘Design As Second Nature’ exhibition at MUAC with a real-time VR experience demonstrating the remarkable possibilities immersive technologies will offer architects to collaborate and design in augmented reality.
The ‘Design As Second Nature’ exhibition at MUAC, Mexico City explores Zaha Hadid Architects’ methodology and creative process, showcasing the studio’s 40 years of experimentation into new design and construction techniques as well their research of material innovations. The exhibition continues until 03 March 2019. www.muac.unam.mx/exposicion/zaha-hadid-architects.
- About Unreal Engine
- About HP Virtual Reality Solutions
- About HTC VIVE
Continued
Project Correl, an interactive virtual reality experience demonstrating immersive technology in architecture Launched at MUAC, Mexico City
Notes to editors:
About Unreal Engine
The Unreal Engine enterprise team supports and nurtures vertical markets interested in using real-time technology within their processes. Industries such as automotive, architecture, film, science, aerospace, marketing, and education all use real-time technology to create immersive user experiences.
Unreal Studio is a 100% royalty-free suite of tools and services that combine the power of Unreal Engine with features needed to accelerate results, facilitate adoption, and support professionals in the enterprise space.
Unreal Studio simplifies the process of creating stunning real-time visuals for architecture, product design, and manufacturing, whilst reducing iteration time through efficient transfer of CAD, 3ds Max, SketchUp Pro, and Revit data into Unreal Engine.
Unreal Studio beta is freely available at www.unrealengine.com/en-US/studio
About HP Virtual Reality Solutions
HP’s approach to virtual reality is founded upon its rich history of product innovation and deeply rooted customer relationships which enables it to deliver the most immersive technologies that help businesses lead their industries. HP’s versatile, high-powered devices like the HP Z VR Backpack and HP Windows Mixed Reality Headset – Professional Edition empower customers to create and consume VR content. The company’s commercial grade products are designed for mission critical business applications that require high levels of security, manageability, reliability and ISV certified applications.
HP Virtual Reality Solutions www.hp.com/go/reinventreality
About HTC VIVE
VIVE is a first-of-its-kind virtual reality platform, built and optimized for room-scale VR and true-to-life interactions. Delivering on the promise of VR with game-changing technology and best-in-class content, VIVE has created the strongest ecosystem for VR hardware and software, bringing VR to consumers, developers and enterprises alike. The VIVE ecosystem is built around the best VR hardware in market, supported by VIVE X, a $100 million accelerator for VR and related technology start-ups, Viveport, a global platform and app store with the world’s first VR subscription model that operates in more than 60 countries, and VIVE Studios, its VR content development and publishing initiative.
VIVE Arts harnesses cutting-edge technology to transform the way culture is experienced, delivering one-of-a-kind projects that can be accessed anywhere in the world. It fosters digital innovation, working with leading artists, museums and cultural organizations to create immersive artworks and exhibits using HTC Vive. Since its launch in 2017, VIVE Arts’ ground-breaking partnerships have included London’s Tate Modern and Royal Academy of Arts, Paris’s Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (French National Museum of Natural History), St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum, Hong Kong’s Art Basel Hong Kong and Taipei’s National Palace Museum, among others.
About the Author
Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid, founder of Zaha Hadid Architects, was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize (considered to be the Nobel Prize of architecture) in 2004 and is internationally known for her built, theoretical and academic work. Each of her dynamic and pioneering projects builds on over thirty years of exploration and research in the interrelated fields of urbanism, architecture and design.
Born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1950, Hadid studied mathematics at the American University of Beirut before moving to London in 1972 to attend the Architectural Association (AA) School where she was awarded the Diploma Prize in 1977. She founded Zaha Hadid Architects in 1979 and completed her first building, the Vitra Fire Station, Germany in 1993.
Hadid taught at the AA SchooI until 1987 and has since held numerous chairs and guest professorships at universities around the world. She is currently a professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and visiting professor of Architectural Design at Yale University.
Working with senior office partner, Patrik Schumacher, Hadid‘s interest lies in the rigorous interface between architecture, landscape, and geology as her practice integrates natural topography and human-made systems. leading to innovation with new technologies.
The MAXXI: National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome, Italy and the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympic Games are excellent manifestos of Hadid‘s quest for complex, fluid space. Previous seminal buildings such as the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati and the Guangzhou Opera House in China have also been hailed as architecture that transforms our ideas of the future with new spatial concepts and dynamic, visionary forms.
Zaha Hadid Architects continues to be a global leader in pioneering research and design investigation. Collaborations with corporations that lead their industries have advanced the practice‘s diversity and knowledge, whilst the implementation of state~of-the-art technologies have aided the realisation of fluid and therefore complex architectural structures.
Currently Zaha Hadid Architects is working on a multitude of projects worldwide including: the High-Speed Train Station in Naples; the CityLife masterplan and tower in Milan; the Library & Learning Centre at the Vienna University of Economics as well as major master-planning projects in Beijing, Bilbao, Istanbul and Singapore. ZHA’s portfolio also includes cultural, corporate, academic and infrastructure projects across Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North and South America, in addition to national institutions such as the new Central Bank of Iraq Headquarters.
Zaha Hadid Architects‘ work of the past 30 years was the subject of critically-acclaimed exhibitions at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2006, London‘s Design Museum in 2007, the Palazzo della Ragione, Padua, Italy in 2009, the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2011 and the Danish Architecture Centre in 2013. Her recently completed projects include The Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum in Michigan (2012), Galaxy SOHO in Beijing (2012), Pierresvives Library and Archive in Montpellier (2012), CMA CGM Head Office Tower in Marseille (2011), London Aquatics Centre (2011), Riverside Museum in Glasgow (2011), Guangzhou Opera House (2010), Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi (2010), MAXXI Museum in Rome (2009), Burnham Pavilion in Chicago (2009), Mobile Art for Chanel in Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York and Paris (2008) and the Nordpark Railway Stations in Innsbruck (2008).
Hadid‘s outstanding contribution to the architectural profession continues to be acknowledged by the world‘s most respected institutions including the Forbes List of the World‘s Most Powerful Women and the Japan Art Association presenting her with the ‘Praemium lmperiale’. In 2010 and 2011, her designs were awarded the Stirling Prize, one of architecture’s highest accolades, by the Royal Institute of British Architects. Other recent awards include UNESCO naming Hadid as an ‘Artist for Peace’, the Republic of France honouring Hadid with the ‘Commandeur de l‘Ordre des Arts et des Lettres’, TIME magazine included her in their list of the ‘100 Most Influential People in the World‘ and in 2012 Zaha Hadid was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.
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