You are walking through an elegant house, admiring the large living-room windows, the paintings on the wall, and the spacious kitchen. Pendant lights cast a soft glow; the terrazzo flooring gleams beneath your feet; the furnishings feel inviting. Then, you take off the VR goggles and resume your meeting.
This scenario is becoming increasingly common as more architects incorporate VR into their practices. Virtual reality allows designers to push the boundaries of visualization, giving colleagues and clients new ways to experience and understand a building or space long before it is actually built. With virtual reality in architecture, architects can transmit not only what a building will look like but also what it will feel like.
Traditionally in architecture, you have blueprints and scale models, and 3D modeling has been around in force for the last 20 years. VR plays into these traditional methods because the two fit closely together, more than the manufacturers actually realize.
Our office provides VR scenarios for projects that requires the extra investment for their marketing purposes. Here are a few samples of our office capabilities.
Christian Fellowship School has experienced continuous student population growth in the past several years, leading to a need for expanded cafeteria space, a more inviting lobby, and the desire for a generally updated interior. Through our analysis and collaboration with the client, we defined some key wants and needs, striving to develop a timeless, usable space within the client’s budget. Some of these goals were a bright interior despite a small number of windows, the feeling of a high ceiling despite a relatively low structure and existing drop ceiling, areas for students to gather and feel welcomed, a more usable serving area for student lunches and events, a seamless connection of the existing structure and addition, and the ability to divide the proposed cafeteria into a couple of smaller environments. We accomplished these goals through the architectural building addition, combining the originally separate lobby and cafeteria rooms, updating finishes throughout to more modern selections reflective of the school’s growth, focusing on an open ceiling with acoustical clouds for a bright, youthful layout, redesigning the serving counter to become accessible and create a more practical flow of students, and coordinating with furniture and signage consultants to create a cohesive, exciting space.
The UMSL Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (UMSL EIC) is a place-based educational community of students, faculty and businesses who see the world through a lens of opportunity.
Once again UMSL contacted Design Alliance Architect to renovate one of its existing buildings to become the house of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center. Talented architects and interior designers worked together with the UMSL team to design exciting and innovative spaces. Below is a series of virtual reality spaces Design Alliance prepared for this project.
Landscape design for "The Bric" Health Center in the North City Saint Louis. A decade-existing building was rehabbed to host the headquarters of "The Bric", a non-profit group that aims to provide health services to the neglected urban population in Saint Louis City.
The Residences at Tesson Ridge is a 250-apartment complex in Saint Louis West County. Design Alliance Architect - Interiors Department was hired to design the interiors of the Lobby, Clubhouse, and Apartment units. A virtual reality image was key to describing the interior design concept to the ownership group and for marketing purposes.
