A new virtual design platform

Imagine a virtual workshop space where site images, maps, data and 3D models can be uploaded, viewed and manipulated in collaboration. The user can interact with scale models on the virtual work table or immerse themselves at 1:1 scale - allowing the entire project team to experience the consequences of their design decisions. By enabling designers from locations across the globe to come together to discuss and develop ideas, SpaceForm reduces the need for physical travel to meetings. In short: SpaceForm enables designers to make better decisions faster.

Jan Bunge, Managing Director at Squint/Opera comments that “SpaceForm marks the first time we can feel and sense a spatial condition before it gets built. This will completely change the way we design, review and communicate projects in the built environment. Unlike most tools, SpaceForm is a tool developed from the industry for the industry.”

A first prototype of SpaceForm was built in 2018 and has since been tested with several architects. From this research Squint/Opera, BIG and UNStudio have consolidated the key features to develop this product for the industry. These include:

• Access to all available data sets for the selected geo-location including maps, historical images, planning regulations, legal restrictions, environmental and social data.

• Multi user and multi platform functionality.

• Ability to produce stills renders and record videos in the application.

Ben Van Berkel, founder of UN studio explains how "Virtual Reality, beyond being a tool for communication, has major impacts for architecture at every stage along the lifecycle of a building. The promise of the SpaceForm research is that it brings computational design and VR together, creating additional dimensions to the value of space: from the design process through to the experience of a completed project. It will allow us to create more relevant, purposeful designs that are more user centric, where form follows effect. From material choices to massing designs, we can make more informed designs together, and witness the direct consequences of those decisions. As all spaces are digital, VR allows for a more efficient, sustainable and portable workflow. "

SpaceForm is currently showcased as part of BIG’s FORMGIVING exhibition which opened at the Danish Architecture Center in Copenhagen on 12 June. Bjarke Ingels added " In the future every physical object will be connected to one another, sensing each other and everything in between. For every physical object there will be a digital twin. For every physical space a virtual space. SpaceForm is the augmented creative collaborative environment of the future which will allow an instantaneous confluence of actual and imagined realities – the present and the future fusing in our augmented sense of reality."