Semi-Fictitious Realms: A History and Future of Virtual Reality

Catalog description

The pursuit of immersive digital experiences has long been a goal of the computing industry. Early wearable displays designed in the 1960s depicted simple three-dimensional graphics in ways that had never been seen before. Through trial and error, digital pioneers reframed the relationship between user and machine, and over the last five decades, have made strides that advanced both the input and output mechanisms we are so comfortable with today. As a field, architecture has been reliant on these advancements to design and document buildings, but these tools still leave the architect removed from the physicality of the design, with their work depicted as 2D lines or 3D planes alone. This course will study the evolutionary advancements made that now allow us to fully inhabit digital worlds through Virtual Reality. Using the Unity Video Game Engine, students will generate immersive, photo-realistic models of unbuilt architectural works and explore digital/physical interactivity. These models will be designed to have compatibility with both 6-DOF and 3-DOF Virtual Reality equipment as well as flythrough-style experiences for keyboard and mouse using various web-hosting platforms. From the terraces of Paul Rudolph's Lower Manhattan Expressway to Boullée's Cenotaph for Newton, the goal of this course is to breathe new life into places and spaces that have, until this time, never been built or occupied.