Wilshire Boulevard
LE MUSEE IMAGINAIRE
MIXED REALITY MUSEUM
2020SPRING
Instructor：Damjan Jovanovic
Partner：Zhaoqi Zhu
The impact of COVID-19 on society is enormous. The biggest change is undoubtedly the way people contact and communicate in public places; social distancing has become a top priority in public places. Museums as typical public space, how to maintain social distancing without sacrificing the exhibition experience become a major demand The vigorous development of virtual reality and augmented reality provides possibilities for it, which provides new ideas and directions for public building design.
The project explores what architecture and technology can do together. With this project, we imagine how advanced spatial Augmented Reality would change architecture. What if the digital becomes spatialized? What if materiality becomes extended through spatial, volumetric interfaces? What happens to our experience when a traditional museum becomes extended through advanced imaging technologies?
Our museum is a composite, mixing between various physical and digital components. Architecture works as connective tissue between these different realms. We use virtual spaces to integrate architecture, art, exhibits, and even the audience experience, breaking the boundary between independent elements and blurring the hierarchy between them.
In general, the main space of the second layer is where the interaction between physical and virtual is at its peak. The process of visiting the museum is a choreographed interaction between visitors and the exhibits, and the virtual images of the exhibits. In this project, art exhibits, natures, people, robots, and spaces are not separated, they are all closely woven together into what may seem like a chaotic, noisy field, yet, this structure is governed by the hyper rationality of big data.
The spatial diagram of our museum consists of three floors, with a fuzzy boundary between the layers. The top layer is used as a shell, which is wrapped in the outer layer of the solid structure, which doubles as a synthetic nature element. The skin we designed is a combination of multiple physical and digital interfaces, sometimes oriented towards the city, sometimes oriented inwards. The envelope has been developed through a combination of three-dimensional crosses and spheres as they extend in all directions through the volume. Some extend into the building and become part of the exhibits and exhibition halls, some small pieces extend to the outside to form a synthetic landscape. The larger volume is combined with a solid structure to form a special internal space and vertical circulation space. Compared with traditional museums, this project pays more attention to the experiential spaces, whether they are purely physical or exist in extended virtuality. In terms of the interaction between the exhibits and the display space, the digital exhibits match the physical display space, and on the opposite side, the physical exhibits match the surrounding environment of the digital language, with the replacement of the traditional paintings by electronic display technologies.
The second layer of the solid structure is more traditional and is mainly programmed as galleries, exhibition spaces, theaters, and retail spaces. This provides the museum with a major space for human inhabitation. As this floor is open to visitors, compared with the storage space, there is more vertical space here, thus connecting the various blocks of the building to give a sense of integrality.
The third layer is the underground space, which is used as the museum’s storage space. This hyper-rational volume is inspired by the Supersurface and operates like the amazon fulfillment center. Compared with traditional art storage space, our storage is like an infinite plane which is organized by a virtual grid. This layer is the final combination of the physical and the virtual and is used to store all the museum information into a giant database. Service robots are the preferred inhabitants of this layer of the museum.
In general, the main space of the second layer is where the interaction between physical and virtual is at its peak. The process of visiting the museum is a choreographed interaction between visitors and the exhibits, and the virtual images of the exhibits. In this project, art exhibits, natures, people, robots, and spaces are not separated, they are all closely woven together into what may seem like a chaotic, noisy field, yet, this structure is governed by the hyper rationality of big data.
