Programme Strategy

Having analysed the site in a little more detail last week, I have decided to simplify the programme of the proposed development slightly. The drawing below illustrates a quick study of the proposed programme  strategy.

The Augmented-reality Pavilion will be the central exhibition space which will  feature the Archi-maton application along with other application from the Apple App store. The key aim of this space will be to provide public engagement and interaction with the pavilion through the use of mobile technology.
The AR pavilion also acts as the central plaza connecting the other spaces in the entire master plan. The location of the pavilion is defined through the intersecting point between the main pedestrian routes and key views through the site.

The plan above highlights the location of the key spaces and routes through the site based on the analysis conducted so far. I intend to take this back on site today and start tracking the main spaces in real-time and explore the possible potentials of gestural design.

Site Analysis



Gestural Design

In designing an application which can cater for both the design and construction of automated architectural solutions, a significant factor which can aid in the design process is the use of a gestural interface which goes beyond the multi-touch capabilities of mobile devices. In the quest for intuitive human-computer interaction, pervasive computing in the form of smart phones can allow for experimentation with new interaction methods, which can prove useful for architectural design.  Nintendo's Wii and Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch have made gestural interfaces popular, however with the release of Xbox kinect, the use of this form of pervasive computing provides multiple advantages for a more intuitive design methodology.

Although in this project I probably wont go into the genius that is Kinect, I will however be incorporating some of the basic principles of this technology in the design stages of the building project. Pervasive computing through the use of mobile devices allows for real-time scanning and sketch design of buildings on-site, with combined capabilities of gestural  interactivity. This means that massing and sketch designs can be explored on site using the mobile device as a controller for drawing.

Possible technologies that mobile devices provide include a 6-axis gyroscope, a motion sensor more accurate than the accelerometer, which provides information of gravity. This combined with the use of the accelerometer and GPRS could easily set up the foundations for gestural design capabilities.

Building project Brief

The year is 2021 and in a world dominated by mobile technology, Apple inc. now holds the power to dominate almost any market with the use of applications available on their infamous app store.The power of the mobile platform and open source application capabilities means that architects/developers can now use applications such as ARKI-maton in a way that revolutionises the process of building development and provides automated design and construction in the form of a single mobile application.

The Apple Centre for Innovative Design and Technology will be built as an exposition to the vast number of specialist apps now on offer on their app store. The Expo will host work by different companies making use of the mobile app market place including:  

ARKI-Maton L.t.d  and

ROB Technologies AG

As well as offering retail, conference and social spaces to the general public at Salford Quays, one of Manchester City’s leading technological centres.  

Finally some mobile action!

I have finally managed to do an actual working prototype of augmented reality on the iphone using the ARtoolworks sdk for ios. The image below illustrates a working model being tracked in REAL-TIME (about 15 fps) using specified marker detection.

As far as the coding goes for this, I will probably not do much else in terms of advancing the application for now. However in relation to the coming building project I hope to be able to implement this technique throughout the design stages of the proposed building.

Archi-Maton Application

Archi-Maton from SAHAR FIKOUHI on Vimeo.

The video above shows how the Archi-maton application would function: it is a loose estimation on the reality of architectural design.Certain parts of the video were programmed using processing programming language.

ARCHI-MATON

This study is the design of an augmented reality mobile application which allows for real-time scanning and sketch design of architectural structures. The application consists of 4 main functions, including site analysis, programme analysis, design library and material library.

Archi-maton aims to provide an extensive library of design systems and processes which can be accesses to develop on-site designs, along with additional functionalities to upload your own design logic for personalised products 

The capabilities of this application will provide minimal time on conventional production and analysis methodologies, freeing more time for design exploration and real-time visualisation. The generative systems included in the application provide interactive design solutions which are controlled through a defined set of parameters which can be changed at any stage to accommodate the various systems in the building.

 



note: this is a design prototype and is not yet developed