Virtual Art Spaces: Munich´s Burning

Chair of Architectural Informatics

Technical University of Munich

Munich´s Burning

Ben Nepomuk Klages, Max Malte Messner

Munich´s Burning

Chair of Architectural Informatics

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Frank Petzold

Critical Modeling

Ivan Bratoev, Nick Förster, Frank Petzold

Ben Nepomuk Klages, Max Malte Messner

1 Research

In our Research, we have looked into the use of AR and VR Applications in participartory Projects and the question in what way and how effective they can be implemented as a design strategy. VR and AR technologies are increasingly being used in urban planning projects as they provide immersive and interactive experiences that allow stakeholders to collaborate and explore potential design solutions in a more effective way. They can create realistic simulations of proposed developments, allowing precise feedback on potential designs, or give the possibility to identify potential issues and areas for improvement before physical construction takes place. AR can also be used to enhance the user experience of a space or building, by overlaying digital information onto the physical environment and thereby allowing deeper interaction in the participation project. This quickly leeds to more playful applications, reffered to as gamification. Easy access and simple to use applications allow a large variety of participants to have valuable impact in the participatory design process.

In the researched projects, such as: Block by Block by UN-Habitat or Urban-AR or even Apps like Pokemon-Go, we found, that especially AR-Application and Gamification with less technical boundaries can play a crucial role to enhance the needed interaction between stakeholders, citizens and planners in the participation process. Also visual limitations can help to focus discussions on specific topics of the project. The technical boundaries and limited interaction possibilities in VR-Applications more often led to less discussion or participants that were able to bring thoughts to the table.

2 Workshop

Starting into the workshop phase oft he project, we started to adapt our research and first thoughts to the project theme of Urban Participation in Neuperlach. First our lighting demos should show projects which focused on the use of AR-Tools and Voxel-Based Gamification Projects, like the participatory planning of an urban playground with the help of Minecraft or geo-location based apps like Pokemon-Go. Also we looked into the use of social-network filters for even less technical boundaries fort he users.

Going further to the panel of four, we looked into the common basis, our project should be developed from. Especially democratic access and thereby democratic participation played a key role in the first round. From there on, we looked into the technicalities of AR or Gamebased applications and figured, that our further process should look into the possibilities of content that lays beyond the visual. Here we mostly started digging into the possibility of creating participatory designs from sound. Sound, Smell and Sense are playing key roles in design project, but are yet hardly adaptable to technical participation tools, such as AR, VR or Games. In the last parts of the workshop phase, we adopted those thoughts to a project idea, in which our participants would here sounds from the city, paired with materials, environmental sounds, etc. Blindfolded they would choose from a palette of sounds. Those sounds would feed an AI to paint an urban image of sounds from the chosen elements. Those pictures could then inform further design strategies in the planning process.

Looking into the qualities of our idea, we figured, that sound could be a broadening element in a participartory process. Also it could be used on the spot as AR-Application and thereby really connect to a place in Neuperlach. Since we planned to further use the sound to create visuals from it, the technical hurdles were really high and to be overcome to make the experience valuable.

Also the UX/UI-Design oft he platform would play a crucial role. To minimize biases produced through the use of AI-Tools and our choice of Sounds and their interpretation in the backend process, we were planning to integrate multiple step AI-Tools or Filters to randomize biased outputs as much as possible. With all those thoughts in mind we went on to develop a time-frame and Gantt-Diagramm from which we could forsee the upcoming challenges and key-dates in our further development.

Workshop - Lighting Demos

Workshop - Panel of Four

AI generated Image [Utopia]

AI generated Image [Dystopia] StableDiffusion

3 Change of Direction

Mid of the semester, our project development changed drastically as we figured, that the planned project partnership for a participartory project in Neuperlach, Munich wouldn’t be possible to continue. From here we had to look for a new theme and partnership which could become the basis for another semester project. As we were working on a project called Cool Islands by Dr. Inês Dantas at the chair of Architectural Design and Participation, we figured it could become an interesting change of direction for our semester.

The theme looks into the issues the city of Munich is facing due to climatic changes, which lead to so called heat-islands and thereby accelerate urban heat effects affecting health and well-being as well as the cities environment. Since those urban heat effects continue to have more and more negative effects on the cities development, the design challenge fort he cool-islands project, was to design strategies that could offer places to citizens, animals or plants to regenarate and help to positively affect the overall cooling network of the city. With that design challenge in mind, we developed a new concept to use AR or VR tools to make the affect of climate change in the city visible and perceptible to a participant. By adapting our time frame and concept board, we were able to create a new time frame and have our goal and steps towards it in clear sight.

Our main goal within this new topic, became the challenge of creating a dystopian to apocalyptic vision of the city of Munich, which we called Munich’s Burning. Within this vision, cool islands in the city would start popping up and showing the network of cool islands which could eventually help preventing the then nearly inevitable.

4 Development

Continuing into the phase of development oft he project, we started by incorporating our approaches for the cool islands project into a theme of a burning city apocalypse. As a way of direction we looked into different approaches of science fiction film history to create an overall mood. For that, especially the idea of colour switches such as those in Blade Runner were inspiring to us. We paired that with a working method aiming for low-poly building abstractions, seen in the work of Ian Hubert. This further developed into an atmosphere which incorporated futuristic appliances as well as dystopic urban features.

In our technical approach we looked into various ways of extracting 3D-VR Videos from diverse platforms, such as Blender, Unreal Engine and eventually Twinmotion.

By extracting 3D-Photogrammetry Data of Munich to Blender, we were able to create a low-poly surrounding oft he city. Since in a further step of development we planned to visualize our thoughts through a futuristic drone flight over the city of Munich, we started implementing more high-resolution 3D Elements which we would be able to pass close by. Furthermore we then started editing Munich to an apocalyptic futurist vision which was inspired by cyberpunkelements and which created the dystopian surrounding we were thriving for. Elements such as a scaled version of the acropolis on the theresienwiese or a windmill on Königsplatz acted as critical echoes to current climatic policies in Bavaria and worldwide. Watercistern marked an era of limited drinking water supply and broken flying taxis stranded on the converted airfield of the former main station showed the lack of a much needed conversion of current public infrastructures towards more resilient solutions.

Embedded in a deserted surrounding, the city looks isolated, like a fallen oases steadily falling apart. We aimed to accentuate that with varying colour schemes, so we tinted this first part oft he video in a burning orange to red atmosphere making the viewing experience uncomfortable and heated up. From there on the atmosphere starts shifting into a more greenish to blueish surrounding.

The dusty but harsh and clear sky converts into a cloudy, rainy and moisty surrounding, which starts to show the anticipated to cool islands which will eventually help saving the viewer from this dystopian outlook. Referring back to our first topic of sound, we collected and implemented sound bites and voices speaking about what we can see in the video and what are the implications leading to such a terrible future outlook. All of that experience is framed through the cockpit view inside a public service drone in a rough flight over the city.

Texturefolder, mood changes, landscape modeling, heatmaps, gathering 3D Data, participatory survey

5 Prototype

Towards the end of the semester, we tried to wrap all of our thoughts and elements up in a concluding VR-Video experience, which should create awareness towards the topic of climate change in the city and especially the heatweaves and their acceleration through urban heat island effects. We included maps, sounds and visuals to allow the viewer to dive deeper into the topic and to enhance the purely visual content of the 3D VR Experience. Furthermore we created a little survey which looked into the behaviour of people in the city and their mobility behaviours. Additionally we wanted to figure out if such a video could affect their behaviour. For the concluding event we sadly couldn’t be there to participate, so we thought about ways of representation for our project which wouldn’t require our physical appearance.

Therefor we animated a Metahuman Persona to be the narrator of our project, which would appear on an IPad in front of the VR-Headset to give an introduction into the project and explain users how to interact and engage with it. As Exhibition Furniture we build a wooden stand which would hold flyer, IPad and VR-Headset readily available to the viewer.

6 Reflection and Outlook

Overall we are happy with the outcome of our project, though we can see many possible points of improvement. Starting with the rapid change of themes, weh ad, the time to develop a new project idea fell very short and definitely lacked some weeks of further development. Additionally we had difficulties developing a free project theme with limited possible discussion with a client or project partner. Nevertheless this challenge gave us a lot of opportunity to improve our digital skill set and to test out various new working techniques. Espacially the VRVidoeanimation that we finally processed in twinmotion was something that allowed for a steep learnig curve and short exploration in programs like Unity and Unrealengine. Again time became a relevant issue rendering and post processing in 360 degres was demanding for our computers and therefor did not always allow for a trial and error approach. We wished for a more immersive experience like in the first working presentation but modeling a new drone and again have several days of rendertime would not have been possible. Still we were quite fascinated by the possible speeds of Twinmotion in this Context and the workload it was capable of handling even without further PC Upgrade to Graphics like an RTX 3080/90 or 40 series. Even besides the own Prototype, the broad range of topics and the variety of projects made the weekly meetings and the course in general very intriguing and gave lots of inspiration and insights. Therefor we are happy to have been part oft he course and are looking forward to further improving our work.

Contact

MAX MALTE MESSNER 03717377

1. MASTERSEMESTER

MAXMALTE.MESSNER@TUM.DE

BEN NEPOMUK KLAGES 03712642

1. MASTERSEMESTER

BEN.KLAGES@TUM.DE