Architecture & Design Now Series - James Graham speaks at 6 pm in L1060

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Architecture & Design NOW
James Graham
6 pm, January 16, 2017
Room L1060, LINC Building
FREE admission, everyone welcome.

The Arrival of Intelligent Virtual Technologies within Architectural Visualization: The complex field of Digital Architectonics as it moves beyond 6 degrees of Freedom

Since the Renaissance, architectural rendering and visualization methods have been a cornerstone in professional architectural practice, allowing architects the freedom to visually innovate and prototype while establishing a common vision and understanding between architects, clients, builders and artists. And yet, after 500 years of advancements in rendering technology, the rendering art form has never successfully bridged the abyss between what is essentially a consciously mediated process of illustration and interpretation, and what is a truly immersive, experiential and sensorial method of simulation. Now, in 2017, that gap is suddenly closing due to the arrival of a wave of advanced disruptive technologies and processes that have shown up almost unannounced on Architecture’s doorstep.

Just as the appearance of the iPhone ten years ago ushered in an unprecedented and technologically disruptive era of ubiquitous “smart phone” computing and communications, this next cluster of technologies – including virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning, UAV and satellite-based GIS, photogrammetry, game engine systems, haptic devices and bio-electronics – will represent a paradigm shift in the way that architects and clients interact with, and customize, architectural structures and environments.

Already, video game engine editors such as Unreal and Unity allow architects to simply “drop” and test their CAD models within real-world simulations that are highly realistic and experiential. But once those simulation systems are melded with “intelligent” and procedurally generated technologies, virtual architecture systems will begin to take on a life of their own. This paradigm shift towards intelligent, responsive and procedurally-generated architectural design and simulation will be revolutionary, but the potential loss of creative and intellectual control for the architect is also a red flag for the creative industries.

James Graham is a Professor and founding faculty member in the Department of New Media. He is also President of Neospatial Corp. a hi-tech start-up that develops game engine based virtual environments for enterprise applications, and has served as VFX technical Director for Vancouver-based Insitu Media Corp since 2016. James holds an MFA degree from NSCAD University and was a motion capture team supervisor on the xbox 360 release title “The Outfit’, which won the Canadian New Media Award for best game of 2006. 

Room or Area: 
L1060

Contact:

finearts | finearts@uleth.ca