Seeing Doubled: Exploring Integrative Extended Reality Applications in the Architecture and Design Exhibition

Abstract

The Architecture and Design Exhibition has always grappled with the issue of displaying architecture—the enclosure, manipulation, and embellishment of space—within a limited museum space. It has relied on various forms of representation to narrate the stories of architectural design and communicate the experience of architectural space. The newest addition to these representational forms is Extended Reality technology, which includes Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality. For the first time, extended reality enables immersive experiences of 3D space, introducing an exciting new frontier to explore in designing Architecture and Design Exhibitions (ADE). Additionally, Extended Reality (XR) has proven to be an entertaining and effective training tool throughout its development and application, which aligns with the purpose of museums to entertain and educate the public—a stance that museological institutions have maintained through the ages. However, when XR features are inserted into the ADE space in practice, various complications arise from technological and spatial limitations. Such issues can and should be overcome to realize the potential for XR to greatly enhance the ADE. Thus, this thesis argues for the integration of XR into the ADE based on synergistic goals and translates the role of spatial and technological limitations from barriers to design drivers, providing some preliminary insight into how to design the XR-integrated Architecture and Design Exhibition. By examining the foundation and effects of techno-spatial limitations, I posit a theoretical set of design guidelines for XR-integrated ADEs by converting them into design-driving parameters. I then test these guidelines against three case studies of real ADEs that have contained some XR component: Project Correl by Zaha Hadid Virtual Reality Group, Project Source Code by Ozel Office, and Value in the Virtual by Space Popular. As a final applied investigation of the theoretical framework and case study learnings, I propose a speculative XR-integrated ADE at the Princeton University Museum of Art using real artifacts as the subject and real galleries as the exhibition space.