Can Interactive Tech Lead to Better Design? Part 1

The traditional design process is being rethought with the introduction of new technologies. But what’s exciting to see is the way digital advances in other industries are influencing the way we think in the architectural world.

Did you know that the wildly popular video game of the 1990s, Quake, has had a profound impact on our current design toolkit? The 3D modeling innovations those software developers achieved in 1996 set the stage for a series of 3D technologies outside of video games. Since Quake was released, both hardware and software developers have been rapidly increasing the power and efficiency of graphics processing to the point where today’s mobile device has much more power than the highest powered gaming rig of the 1990s.

We’re having a lot of fun here at SERA leveraging these 3D technologies and pairing them up with the latest tablets to explore a new design territory called augmented reality. While this is a direction that quite a few folks are exploring (see this recent Fast Company highlight), we are continually finding and creating new ways for this technology to communicate ideas and design options.

So what does all of this look like? In this multi-part blog series, we’ll walk you through the range of what we’re exploring.

In the meantime, enjoy this short clip that highlights how a sketchy, 3D environment can be navigated and overlayed with more literal renderings.

Music: “Budding” by Broke For Free (brokeforfree.com)