Design Review in VR
posted May 30th, 2017 in Design
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Elliot Hospital team members review proposed design for new Urgent Care center.
As the dust settles from the recent explosion in Virtual Reality [VR] technology, one thing is becoming clear: it is changing the way we interact with the digital environment. Up until recently, developments in CAD and BIM technologies, as impressive as they are, had been stymied by the limitations of computer monitors and print media. The arrival of VR headset technology breaks through the traditional limitations of the screen and puts people “in” the design to experience, evaluate and comment from a first-person perspective. Over the past few years, we at E4H have been exploring ways of incorporating VR in the design review process, starting in the office and then bringing it to our clients.
At the Office
One of the most important things an architect can do is open their work up to their peers for review and commentary. This has historically been by pinning up work on the wall or showing things on a monitor, but lately we have been incorporating VR into these informal design review meetings in the office. One of our team rooms in the Boston office doubles as VR Lab, with furniture moved to the side to create an open space for walking around the virtual model without bumping into physical objects that can’t be seen with the VR goggles on. Team members can give feedback based on what they are seeing, including the “feeling” of the room using the true-to-scale nature of the software. Using IrisVr’s Prospect software, we can cycle through preset locations for doing multi-room reviews, add markups to the model, draw in space, and take snapshots for sharing these notes with others later
These VR design reviews also help to eliminate the distance between our offices and allows the opportunity to get feedback from our diverse group of designers across the country. Using our high speed network and multiple VR headsets, teams in Texas can review a project in New York and share comments based on their own recent work.
With Our Clients
In addition to reviewing the our work as a team, we also conduct VR design reviews during typical meetings with our clients. We recently used this during a final design development review at Elliot Hospital, with multiple users from different departments. We gathered feedback on equipment locations, casework configurations, outlet quantities and furniture arrangement. The perspective from the goggles is duplicated on via projection for everyone else to follow along and continue to offer feedback. Once the group gets past the initials fears or hesitancy to try them out, they often forget they are still sitting in a conference room. The technology has been a great facilitator of discussion with users of all kinds including doctors, nurses, administrators, facilities staff and more.