Detonator prototype at the Bartlett Exhibition (Augmented Reality Gaming)

          

The integration of augmented reality technology in architectural space has capacity to open new portals of communication and encounters into the built environment to change people’s behaviour in space. This can be done by reclaiming parts of an urban environment to provide a new use of space which is non‐regulated, open source and allows for freedom of expression.

The issue with the current urban setup is the lack of flexibility which citizens have in creatively expressing and humanising their urban landscape. The lack of participation of citizens with their visual built environment creates a detachment between occupants and their setting and therefore minimises the opportunity for social interaction and self‐expression. Furthermore our built infrastructure needs radical modernisation to keep up to date with society and culture. This doesn’t automatically mean a physical reconfiguration and re‐development of the built environment, but actually an initiation of new uses induced into everyday environments to show how current digital culture can re‐energise and claim territory in completely new ways.

The main focus of concern for this new paradigm of visual augmentation lies in the potential possibilities for incorporating new social experiences into the built environment which can transcend the physical limitations of built infrastructure and the hierarchies who govern our visual and social experiences. The use of augmented reality technology in the architectural practice has potential to go beyond visualisation of information and into the creation of new meaningful spaces of interaction and discourse. These new locations can exist parallel to the physical environment by reclaiming existing architecture to augment through new uses and programs.