For most of the profession’s history, the architect’s main tool for explaining an idea was the drawing: sketches, perspectives, watercolours. Designing the space was only half the job. You also needed the skill to get what was in your head onto paper.
“My hand is an extension of my thoughts, of my creative thoughts. When you draw something, the brain and the hands work together.” — Tadao Ando.
Then came virtual images, or renders. Textures, materials and lighting give a step up in realism on a hand drawing. Even so, drawing and render alike show only part of a project: one slice of it. Can a single image define a whole scheme? Is there a way of seeing what the architect is proposing in full, rather than in fragments?
There is.
Virtual reality in architecture takes you past the limits of the page. The client walks through the house before a single wall goes up. At Klicstudio we use it to improve how architect and client understand each other. You can move through each room and change it as you go: wall colour, floor finish, lights on and off, the way daylight moves through the house over the course of the day. If you are buying or refurbishing from abroad and only get to Málaga every few weeks, that matters — a virtual walk-through is the closest thing to a site visit without the flight.
“Architecture is only complete with the intervention of the human being who experiences it.” — Tadao Ando.
So this tool, which brings architecture and virtual reality together, does not just help the architect explain an idea. It lets the client understand it properly.
It helps the work itself, too, not only the conversation with the client. Built on BIM models, augmented reality applications keep architects, builders, suppliers and clients working off the same model. You walk the job virtually and spot problems before they happen. Everyone reviews everyone else’s work from wherever they are, and leaves notes as they go. On site that counts for a lot. Everyone involved can see what the finished result is meant to be, which cuts out the usual misreadings of the drawings.
