Experience your building design before you break ground by KEN SEELOW - Eppstein Uhen Architects

Picture this: a client meets with the design firm they have entrusted to create their new headquarters. They’ve spent countless hours and resources to ensure employees will have a space that is comfortable, inviting and integrates into their overall brand. The client sits down and the design firm presents plans and renderings. But, the client struggles to understand how the design relates to their goals.

Let’s flip the switch. What if, instead of the singular view these plans and renderings provide, the architect hands each member of the client’s team a pair of virtual reality goggles allowing them to experience the proposed headquarters firsthand.

Technology’s role
Technology plays a critical role in Eppstein Uhen Architect’s (EUA) approach to designing spaces and ensuring client satisfaction. While Building Information Modeling (BIM) is still the standard among architects, Virtual Reality (VR) allows us to leverage it in a new way.

VR immerses users in a 3D virtual environment, bringing our designs to life in a way that was not possible even a few years ago. Not only does the technology allow clients to better understand what a space will look like in final form, it also can track critical performance data, saving money throughout the various phases of design and construction.

Augmented reality
The next advanced technology option that is being perfected is Augmented Reality (AR). This technology allows the architectural team to overlay 3D virtual images over real-world spaces, enhancing the model to the point that programming and design options can be altered and vetted from various locations in real-time.

VR advantages
There was a time, just a few years ago, when one-dimensional plans would go out early for the contractors to budget from, so a client would have a sense of early project budgets. This left the door open to assumptions and design details being missed in early estimates. VR has aided our clients and contractors in understanding design details that are being planned for in the built environment. Contractors pick those details up in the early budgets and owners have a greater level of confidence in the design and corresponding budget.

With the ability to leverage these new and improving technology tools, we are now able to give clients confidence that the final design will provide exactly what they want. What they see is what they will get.  


For more info, contact Heather Turner Loth at  414.291.8143 or to see VR in action, visit
http://www.eua.com/innovation/

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