FabriCity XR
For the Texas Tech pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, I designed and built the web-based, gamified AR layer that visitors opened on their phones, and led the poster design. The installation itself was the work of a large studio team led by Mostafavi and Mehan.
- ROLE
- Graduate research assistant, mixed reality R&D and graphics
- VENUE
- Time Space Existence 2023, Palazzo Mora, Venice (European Cultural Centre), representing Texas Tech University
- TEAM
- Huckabee College of Architecture, Texas Tech University. Principals: Prof. Sina Mostafavi and Prof. Asma Mehan. XR R&D and graphics: Sarvin Eshaghi and Sepehr Vaez Afshar
- BUILT WITH
- MyWebAR (by DEVAR, a project sponsor): WebAR in the browser, no app install, dynamic QR codes
My part
- The AR layer. The pavilion is a lattice structure with four city models on 3D-printed pedestals. I built the web-based AR experience that sits on top of it: visitors scan a QR code, point a phone at a model or a marker, and get interactive data layers, videos, collage layers with audio, and the micro and macro models, all in the browser with nothing to install.
- Four trails as a game. The content is organized as four extended-reality trails, two for Amsterdam and two for Houston, each pairing a social and an environmental theme. I turned the trails into a short game: eight stations, levels, a next step at each marker, and a compare-versus-combine finish, so a visitor has a reason to walk the whole structure instead of scanning one code and leaving.
- Graphics. I led the design of the project posters and the diagrams that explain the phygital mapping and the XR play to visitors.
What I learned
An exhibition is the hardest place to test AR: strangers, no instructions, a few seconds of attention, old phones. Everything had to work from a QR code on the first try. That constraint shaped Skopiora XR later.
Credits
FabriCity XR was created at the Huckabee College of Architecture, Texas Tech University, led by Prof. Sina Mostafavi and Prof. Asma Mehan, with the Design, Computation and Fabrication and Urban and Community Design studios and external partners. Full credits are on the project pages linked below. Installation photos: Federico Vespignani.
Gallery
