Empathy In Point Clouds: Spatializing Design Ideas and Storytelling through Immersive Technologies integrates LiDAR scanning, photogrammetry, and UnReal Engine into education, expanding the possible methodologies and processes of architectural design. Entering our third year of the FEAST program, we turn our attention to storytelling and worldbuilding using site-specific point cloud models as the context for our narratives. This year the team will produce 1-2 spatial narratives for the three immersive technology platforms we are working with: VR headset, MiDEN/VR CAVE, and the LED stage.
Spatializing Design Ideas. Architecture design process has primarily relied on sketching, drawing and modeling in CAD and graphics programs. These programs provide a C-Plane as a site, devoid of visualization of the site. Spatial ideas are laid out in sketch form orthographically and very quickly move to a digital model. The digital model is then cut into vertical sections to describe the interior of the model. As a C-Plane is often not supportive of site measure or information, most projects are generated as objects without the specific measure of the site. This team has accomplished the initial workflows to import the site point cloud, generated from the LiDAR scanner, into UE. Photogrammetry documentation of physical models are created and imported into UE. VR headset provides a platform for students to study the design model in the context of the site to make informed decisions as the project develops. The VR CAVE, MiDEN, provides a platform for sharing the project for feedback from the design studio instructor and peers.
Storytelling and Worldbuilding. Upper-level studios in architecture use UE, Gaming or Filmmaking/Live Events templates to world build through constructing landscapes and/or importing site-specific point clouds from LiDAR scans. Actors and characters we will work with include physical and digital models, Metahumans, mocap, and other assets created with photogrammetry. Our goal is to produce a number of workflows for the integration of data into UE to produce 1-2 short story for proof of concept.
Students apply to a specific role on team as follows:
**The following position is currently recruiting rising juniors, seniors, and grad students to join the team in Fall 2023**
Photogrammetry & LiDAR Specialist (2 Students)
Preferred Skills: Skills: ArcGIS and photogrammetry experience. Interest in integrating drone imagery to terrestrial lidar models. Interest in 3D scanning (lidar and photogrammetry).
Likely Majors/Minors: ARCH, ARTDES, CE, CS, ROB, SI
**To apply, please complete an application including your resume or CV and brief statement of interest explaining how you will positively impact the project no later than March 8 to be considered for an interview.**
3D Modeler/Fabricator (2 Students)
Preferred Skills: Proficient in one or more of the following: the woodworking, metalworking, sewing, and/or casting techniques; experience in construction, building physical prototypes (a maker).
Likely Majors/Minors: ARCH, ARTDES, MSE, THTREMUS
Videographer (2 Students)
Preferred Skills: Videography, filmmaking
Likely Majors/Minors: ARTDES, FTVM
VR Programmer (2 Students)
Preferred Skills: Familiar with UE5
Likely Majors/Minors: ARCH, CS
Faculty Project Lead
Dawn Gilpin is Lecturer IV in Architecture at the University of Michigan, Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning where she teaches drawing, design, and representation. After receiving her M. Arch. from Southern California Institute of Architecture in Los Angeles Gilpin worked in the offices of Architectural Alliance and Meyer, Scherer, and Rockcastle in Minneapolis. Gilpin taught design and representation at the University of Minnesota where she co-directed a semester abroad in Oaxaca, Mexico and co-designed and participated in the exhibition The Home Show/Architecture Studio, at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Co-founder and director of Adams + Gilpin, she works on a range of projects and creative endeavors focused on the reconfiguration of the status of accessibility within domesticity. Gilpin is honored to be a multiple-year recipient of the Donna Salzer Award for Teaching Excellence. Gilpin’s 2016 Wallenberg Studio, “The Radical and The Preposterous: Mind the Gap”, won one of six ARCHITECT Studio Prizes.