scholarly journals Between Moments - Using virtual reality with participatory processes to design healthcare waiting places

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Robyn Harkness

<p>Within healthcare architecture, there is a void of attention directed towards the non-medical spaces; the waiting rooms, hallways and all ‘between moments’ where many people spend extended periods of time under acute stress. Nowhere is this more prevalent that in the emergency departments where patients seek care and treatment for real or perceived, serious injuries or illnesses. While waiting for medical attention, exposure to high levels of harsh lighting, sterile furnishings, chaotic activity and cavernous rooms with others in distress can cause and increase anxiety, delirium and high blood pressure. The emotional experience of such spaces changes based upon a user’s unique sensory conditions and therefore their individual perception of space.  The architectural design tools and devices to explore these highly charged sensory spaces have been historically limited to technical plans and sections and rendered marketing perspectival images, which do not fully communicate the immersive experience of these spaces when in use. Virtual reality is emerging as a powerful three-dimensional visualisation tool, offering designers the opportunity to comprehend proposed designs more clearly during the planning and design phases, thus enabling a greater influence on design decision making.  This research explores the use of VR in a healthcare perspective, adopting a participatory design approach to simulate sensory conditions of blindness, deafness and autism and the emotions associated with these conditions within space. This approach diverges from a purely visual method of design towards an understanding of the haptic, exploring the critical phenomenology behind these non-medical spaces. The research finds significant potential for the use of virtual reality as a design tool to simulate the experience of these spaces in early design stages.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Robyn Harkness

<p>Within healthcare architecture, there is a void of attention directed towards the non-medical spaces; the waiting rooms, hallways and all ‘between moments’ where many people spend extended periods of time under acute stress. Nowhere is this more prevalent that in the emergency departments where patients seek care and treatment for real or perceived, serious injuries or illnesses. While waiting for medical attention, exposure to high levels of harsh lighting, sterile furnishings, chaotic activity and cavernous rooms with others in distress can cause and increase anxiety, delirium and high blood pressure. The emotional experience of such spaces changes based upon a user’s unique sensory conditions and therefore their individual perception of space.  The architectural design tools and devices to explore these highly charged sensory spaces have been historically limited to technical plans and sections and rendered marketing perspectival images, which do not fully communicate the immersive experience of these spaces when in use. Virtual reality is emerging as a powerful three-dimensional visualisation tool, offering designers the opportunity to comprehend proposed designs more clearly during the planning and design phases, thus enabling a greater influence on design decision making.  This research explores the use of VR in a healthcare perspective, adopting a participatory design approach to simulate sensory conditions of blindness, deafness and autism and the emotions associated with these conditions within space. This approach diverges from a purely visual method of design towards an understanding of the haptic, exploring the critical phenomenology behind these non-medical spaces. The research finds significant potential for the use of virtual reality as a design tool to simulate the experience of these spaces in early design stages.</p>


2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 05005
Author(s):  
Luhur Sapto Pamungkas ◽  
Cinthyaningtyas Meytasari ◽  
Hendro Trieddiantoro

Studios. This ability gained through visual design thinking. The spatial experience honed by three dimensional thinking from the medium diversity. The spatial experience learned through a room layout, proportion, and composition. This research used an experimental method and the primary data obtained by a “Likert” scale questionnaire. The Respondents are 50 students of the Architectural Design Studio. Moreover, the analysis focuses on the VR for spatial experience. The result was a descriptive explanation of the effectiveness of Virtual Reality for a spatial experience of architecture students at Technology University of Yogyakarta.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Keegan Hannaway

<p>Behind every site is an unseen history. Before us, countless people have lived their lives through an ever evolving environment. This research examines how a process of uncovering site specific architectural and cultural histories using virtual reality can facilitate for the development of a design intervention that builds upon former histories of the site.  This has been done through a process of digitally unveiling traces of historic architectures, using notions of palimpsest and pentimento.   Palimpsest and pentimento are terms from art and literary studies which are concerned with the physical traces of historic processes left on parchment and canvas, the reworking and adding to a new piece that reflects what was before. Palimpsest as an architectural theory is somewhat related to ideas of historicism in 1980s post-modernist architecture.  This research was undertaken initially through conventional historical research using archival plans and photographs of former buildings on the site. These were obtained from sources such as the Wellington City Council and National Library of New Zealand in order to accurately determine what has previously existed. This history was then visually represented in three-dimensional digital models and overlaid onto a model of the site.  By digitally rebuilding each built intervention, users can occupy each phase separately or simultaneously in a virtual reality environment. This full scaled model enables an accurate visualisation of how the historic architecture really existed. Ideas such as scale, phenomenology, depth, form, and detail can be represented in virtual reality in a way that allows a greater understanding than simple flat images and plans.  This process then leads to a way of developing an architecture based off what made the previous buildings successful. Once Again using virtual reality, this time as a design tool, to root the new building in to its historical context, creating a deeper architectural experience.  Developing this process of using the history of a site as a tool for generating a new architecture allows for a greater meaning of the site, and for a deeper meaning to the architecture.</p>


Author(s):  
Mohd Fairuz Shiratuddin ◽  
Alen Hajnal

Constructivist learning emphasizes students’ involvement in the learning process, how they become self-directed learners and actively engaged in the learning environment. This chapter describes Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) and its relevance to collaborative learning and constructivism. The authors developed the Collaborative World Design Tool (CWDT) software to evaluate the benefits of CVE for architectural design students. The CWDT was developed based on the Torque 3D Game Engine, thus the appearance and functionalities of the CWDT within the CVE are similar to computer game playing environment. In the experiment, subjects designed within the CVE, were either experts or novices, worked either individually or in pairs, and constructed a virtual building in a three-dimensional outdoor environment. Results show that working collaboratively within a CVE has great potential to increase performance where teamwork is faster than individual work, and overall provide a constructive learning environment.


Author(s):  
Denis V. Dorozhkin ◽  
Judy M. Vance

Virtual Reality (VR) is becoming an important tool in the engineering product development process. The virtual environment provides the user with the ability to interact with three-dimensional digital representations of products using natural head and hand motions. While interacting with digital objects in VR seems natural, the use of traditional two-dimensional menu systems does not always provide a convenient interface to controlling task specifications in the three-dimensional space. New human-computer-interfaces are needed for this emerging VR design tool. This paper will present the details of implementing a speaker-independent, command and control, speech recognition menuing system for a virtual reality application. The menuing system will be described as it is incorporated into a virtual environment for the design of spatial mechanisms. Design and technical issues involved in the interface creation process are discussed and the resulting interaction system is described.


Author(s):  
Leif P. Berg ◽  
Judy M. Vance

The research presented here describes an industry case study of the use of immersive virtual reality (VR) as a general design tool with a focus on the decision making process. A group of design and manufacturing engineers, who were involved in an active new product development project, were invited to participate in three design reviews in an immersive environment. Observations, interviews, and focus groups were conducted to evaluate the effect of using this interface on decision making in early product design. Because the team members were actively engaged in a current product design task, they were motivated to use the immersive technology to address specific challenges they needed to solve to move forward with detailed product design. This case study takes the approach of asking not only what can users do from a technology standpoint but also how their actions in the virtual environment influence decision making. The results clearly show that the team identified design issues and potential solutions that were not identified or verified using traditional computer tools. The design changes that were the outcome of the experience were implemented in the final product design. Another result was that software familiarity played a significant role in the comfort level and subsequent effectiveness of the team discussions. Finally, participants commented on how the immersive VR environment encouraged an increased sense of team engagement that led to better discussions and fuller participation of the team members in the decision process.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Keegan Hannaway

<p>Behind every site is an unseen history. Before us, countless people have lived their lives through an ever evolving environment. This research examines how a process of uncovering site specific architectural and cultural histories using virtual reality can facilitate for the development of a design intervention that builds upon former histories of the site.  This has been done through a process of digitally unveiling traces of historic architectures, using notions of palimpsest and pentimento.   Palimpsest and pentimento are terms from art and literary studies which are concerned with the physical traces of historic processes left on parchment and canvas, the reworking and adding to a new piece that reflects what was before. Palimpsest as an architectural theory is somewhat related to ideas of historicism in 1980s post-modernist architecture.  This research was undertaken initially through conventional historical research using archival plans and photographs of former buildings on the site. These were obtained from sources such as the Wellington City Council and National Library of New Zealand in order to accurately determine what has previously existed. This history was then visually represented in three-dimensional digital models and overlaid onto a model of the site.  By digitally rebuilding each built intervention, users can occupy each phase separately or simultaneously in a virtual reality environment. This full scaled model enables an accurate visualisation of how the historic architecture really existed. Ideas such as scale, phenomenology, depth, form, and detail can be represented in virtual reality in a way that allows a greater understanding than simple flat images and plans.  This process then leads to a way of developing an architecture based off what made the previous buildings successful. Once Again using virtual reality, this time as a design tool, to root the new building in to its historical context, creating a deeper architectural experience.  Developing this process of using the history of a site as a tool for generating a new architecture allows for a greater meaning of the site, and for a deeper meaning to the architecture.</p>


Author(s):  
R.S. Kamath ◽  
T.D. Dongale ◽  
R.K. Kamat

One of the challenging tasks in engineering education is to bridge the gaps between imagination and real time problems of different engineering areas. The virtual reality (VR) can reduce this gap and also provides clear ideas on the basis of real time problems. The architectural education influenced and goes hand in hands for meeting these crucial challenges using advancements in computer technologies. In this research, we developed a VR tool for improving architectural design education. We explain VR tool as a value addition to the architectural education. The system is based on a general purpose computer, ceiling-mounted projector and passive glasses for Three Dimensional (3D) viewing. The presented work shows that virtual reality technology can considerably progress the efficiency learning by allowing young architects to apply theoretical knowledge to real world problems. In addition, it develops creativity, innovation, communication, problem solving approach, team-working and business skills.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline McIntosh ◽  
Bruno Marques

<p>Successful design for culturally-diverse communities hinges on a nuanced understanding of the cultural environment; building trusting relationships and fostering a respectful approach to community. This paper discusses the application of design-led research with a participatory mind-set and maintains that while a collaborative, interdisciplinary participatory design process is essential, a design-led research approach is particularly valuable. Blurring the boundaries between disciplines brings the users to the forefront of design as active co-creators, sharing ideas, tools and methods. It examines two projects – a Tokelau / Pasifika cultural museum exhibition involving museum curators, architects, interior designers, photographers and local community members; and a Māori landscape regeneration project in the Wairarapa region of Wellington – wherein the designers (in this case the students) took the role of facilitator rather than providing a hierarchical and potentially adversarial approach to community design decision-making. The research project was framed around three critical stages: design analysis (holistic context), design exploration and testing (exploring design scenarios), and design synthesis (agreed plan or direction). It finds that participatory design when performed correctly can increase the capacity for community engagement; provide substantial benefits to the design outcomes; and beneficially exploit the process of design-led research. In addition to the community benefits, this interdisciplinary and collaborative research process can create new opportunities for architectural design education as it educates students as world citizens. As such it has the potential to transform architectural practice.</p>


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