An Architortured Mind: My Reality: Virtual Reality

Last semester, I took a workshop focusing the College of Design's brand new Virtual Reality Lab. The main goal of the 8 weeks was to design models on SketchUp and then to walk through them in virtual reality. What ended up happening was we became guinea pigs for experimentation in virtual reality.

In coordination with a developer in England, we became the first VR lab to use a rendering software to allow shadows and reflections in VR. The program is LightUp. You can purchase it at this site http://www.light-up.co.uk/ and I highly recommend it for anyone doing a lot of modeling in SketchUp in need of rendered images. It allows you to render your model, not just an image of your model. In Kerkythea, what took 4 hours per image now takes 5 minutes per model in LIghtUp. From here, you can take pictures of your model, as many as you want from any angle you want. This is why it is so much faster and this is what allows for rendering in the VR. By uploading a rendered model, you get to experience the lighting effects as they would be in real life. The really sets the tone for a project and allows you to feel completely immersed in the VR environment.

Throughout this workshop, I experienced some things I never imaged I could. I felt the butterflies and stomach tying knots of vertigo while standing on the level floor of the lab. I felt gravity shift as I walked down a corridor with angling walls. I nearly toppled over while walking that same corridor. All of these feelings great architecture can create were experienced in the lab in my architecture building.

This workshop involved creating several models, of which I only took photos of my final model. That is because all my early models were duds compared to my final. I created a challenge for myself to recreate that iconic photo of Grand Central Terminal (another train station, of course) with the light rays streaming down from the clerestory windows of the great hall. VR would give me the change to actually insert myself in that picture and to walk around, experience the great hall of Grand Central Terminal in the 1930s. That was the end goal.

To explain how I did it, I will speak generally, as the detail of this even confuses me. There are two basic sections of the model, the bays and the ends. I created a bay, then copied it 4 times side by side to create the length of the great hall. I then created an end and copied that, rotated it, and place it on the other end. Thus, my room was complete. Then, I got to work on the lighting. It is a bit complicated, so let's just say I created 5 tubes shaped like the arched clerestory windows. I made them light elements and rotated them, placing them in the hall. Then, I traced around where these tubes met the floor and made these sections light emitters, to imitate reflection of the light. Finally, I placed silhouettes in the room to give it a sense of scale as well as crowdedness.

The result was magical. I mean, not in the "hey everyone pat me on the back" way, but in the "this took my breath away when I put the helmet on" kinda way. Once I finished it and stepped into a different world, what others though slipped my mind and I was in love. I felt so small, but the space was so warm, with the glow of the sunlight flowing through tubes of volume lighting and reflecting off the floor. I had no words, only a gaping mouth. It was an experience I have never had before. (I don't get out much) But the fact that I haven't been to places like this, but was still able to have this experience is why VR is so invaluable. Whether its a alien hall on another planet or a bungalow in the burbs, VR provides the opportunity for people to inhabit a space never possible before. You can walk through your own design to look for potential flaws, travel overseas to see buildings not accessible to everyone, even create the world of your imagination and inhabit the (virtual) reality of your own mind. That is why during fall 2012, virtual realtiy was my reality.