Digital haptic materiality

Abstract

Pop Up Reality Shop* is a group thesis project consisting of four students. Each student is responsible for an architectural research area which collectively informs the project’s research. My specific research area, digital haptic materiality, is interested in generating new materials using augmented reality technology. Pop Up Reality Shop* explores the future of retail spaces, blending art, technology and architecture as the in-between of an online store and a physical shop. It utilises a highly deformable physical construction to act as an input device for digital spatial manipulations, guiding the audience through a new type of shopping and architectural experience. The project is embedded in the research lab arc/sec for Digital Spatial Operations. The team of four students: Anita Chin, Bevin Liang, Linus Goh and Ricky Tung have been working in collaboration with Datacom at the AR/VR Garage. The Garage is New Zealand’s first innovation hub with a focus on cutting-edge technology. The project utilises the recently released Microsoft HoloLens in combination with the motion capture system OptiTrack to link physical matter with digital materiality. The outcome is in a unique haptic user experience within hybridised spaces. Pop Up Reality Shop* has undergone multiple iterations and stages of development in analogue and digital. The aim of the project was to create a new breed of prototypical architecture which proposes a paradigm shift in how we design for tangible data in space - a space that embodies digital data within physical properties. This project as a whole contrasts traditional simulative architectural speculations, intending to act as a working concept that explores the formulation of new models of space using the current technology.