I got an interesting email the other day.

Dear Scott:
Are you looking for a cool blog contribution? Attached you will find a Maya / MRI work from architectural students from the University in Graz. It would be great if you could publish it on It's Alive in the Lab. Thanks a lot.
Regards,
Thomas
KOMME®Z
DI. Thomas Kienzl
www.kommerz.at

I found it fascinating, so I thought I would share it with you. Enjoy.

Semester work: "red hook - timber in the city" realized with Autodesk Maya and KOMMERZ MRI projection table.
INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE AND MEDIA , Graz University of Technology / Austria

Studio: red hook - timber in the city

The basic idea of the studio: red hook was to bring together CAD technologies, the MRI projection table, and an architectural scale model (on a very big scale) on the technical side and to do some high-rise, parametric, sustainable design on the architectural side. To achieve this, we worked with 13 students on the students' competition, "Timber in the city" // more.

Digital Design means to augment virtual and physical, analog and digital objects seamlessly. The studio was an attempt to work with digital technologies on an analog scale model, to present designs using only projection and to keep the whole design task in one cloud space. For more information, please see the accompanying blog: Studio: Timber in the City

The technological starting point of the studio: red hook - timber in the city was a laboratory with a wide range of equipment for interacting with and presenting digital content. Five projectors supplied the wall, floor and building (model) projections. The projections were controlled by a KOMMERZ MRI (Mixed Reality Interface) projection table. Autodesk Maya was output via the five projectors and the MRI.

The architecture students developed their parametric models and transferred the results into Autodesk Maya. There the facades of the virtual models were animated and controlled by the MRI. The projectors projected these interactive Maya animations as augmented reality projections onto the built models, which stood in the middle of the lab. Additional information on the projects was projected onto the walls of the lab next to each model. Based on the projections, the real models were modified, scanned/digitalized, re-imported into Maya and then the process started all over again. Since these data was stored in the cloud, this process and the presentations were not only completely paperless, but they also didn't require the usual file transfer.

During the studio, a connection was programmed between the MRI and design tool and processing (via OSC). This made it possible to use both of these programs for the interactive projections.

The aim was to make a new interface (MRI) available for the architectural design process. A wide variety of ideas for the facades were quickly presented and simulated using the setup in Maya. Several students even managed to come up with another function; that is, visualizing design phases along a time line using the MRI.

Watch the amazing video of all projects: red hook: Timber in the city.

Here are examples of two selected projects:

NYWhale

The project is a horizontal skyscraper designed as a vertical farm for the Red Hook neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. The building resembles a sea creature floating on the tranquil waves of the Hudson River. The structure of the building is pretty simple and self-explanatory. The whole shape is organized around the core consisting of several tubes — corridors and self-supporting structures.

The building is supposed to help feed the local community. According to the Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN, 700sqm of traditional farm land is needed to feed one person. Vertical farming is said to multiply the productivity of the farmed surface by a factor of 4-6 depending on the crop. If the dwarf version of the crop is used (for example, dwarf wheat developed by NASA, which is smaller in size but richer in nutrients), a 30-story building with a 5-acre/20,000sqm building block base would yield a yearly crop equivalent to 2,400acres/9.7sqkm of traditional farm land. For more on this project, see: Studio: NYwhale final.

Terrace Tower

In this project, residential and commercial spaces come together to create a hybrid building complex. The alignment of the building and the way in which the individual floors are stacked upon each other combine to form an outdoor area of spacious terraces that extend towards the south, or, in this case, the ocean. The facade is composed of square elements, which can be opened and closed in a special way through diagonal folding, resulting in an almost completely clear opening in the facade. Depending on the lighting conditions, this can be adjusted dynamically to meet the needs of residents/office workers. The building has two access cores: one for residents and one for business people. The building is structured vertically.

The work focused on the interaction between the MRI (Mixed Reality Interface) and the animation of the facade. For this purpose, the team developed a control panel. The interaction starts as soon as the panel touches the table and stops as soon as it is moved it away. Further, the user receives real-time feedback on what color is currently selected on the panel, regardless of the position and location of the panel. There are three different animations to choose from:

1. The first animation allows the user to rotate the facade and change its color.
2. The second animation allows waves of color to wash across the facade.
3. The third instantly and completely adjusts the facade to the new color values.

For more on this project, see: Studio: Author Archive.

NSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE AND MEDIA,
graz university of technology / Austria // more

Instructors in Charge:

• Stefan Zedlacher zedlacher@tugraz.at
• Milena Stavric stavric@tugraz.at
• Markus Manahl manahl@tugraz.at
• Renate Weissenböck weissenboeck@tugraz.at

Thanks Thomas. We have a Kommerz MRI device in the Autodesk Gallery. If you are ever in San Francisco, you can see and touch one for yourself.

Reality is alive in the lab.