Project Overview

Woods Bagot has set up a space in its New York office where clients can view early stages of design ideas in virtual reality.

Organisation

Woods Bagot

Project Brief

Woods Bagot is embracing the future of design and client relations with virtual reality apps that offer customizable interfaces. The VR app, driven by game-engine technology, aims to give clients a unique spatial and human experience that you can’t get from a rendering or even animation.

Project Innovation/Need

The bespoke app works like this: Woods Bagot creates a white-card rendering that puts the client in the VR space and allows him or her to move from room to room. The environment is designed, but in a very early concept stage.

The beauty of using VR apps in early design stages is that there’s a fairly quick turnaround so that a more refined design can be presented to the client either in Woods Bagot’s New York office—which includes a 10x15-ft space equipped with an HTC Vive headset and screen—or by using a phone app with a portable headset like Google cardboard.

One of the benefits of having clients install the apps on their phones, explains Burger, is that they can receive Woods Bagot’s design proposals right away, and that multiple people can view the design simultaneously. (The designs are accessed via a web link.)

Woods Bagot has developed apps for both iOS and Android phones.