Real Virtuality At The Royal Academy of Arts Designed by Gilles Retsin Architecture

Real Virtuality is an architectural installation at the Royal Academy of Arts, designed by Gilles Retsin Architecture to combine timber construction with Augmented Reality and Automation. Exploring how Augmented Reality could be used for fabrication, rather than merely visualisation, Gilles Retsin Architecture used Microsoft’s Hololens to assemble modular timber building blocks of the Real Virtuality project in real-time.

The Hololens overlays a digital model of the envisioned design in the exhibition space, indicating the position of the lego-like blocks and their connections. As the blocks are modular and the design is not fixed, adaptations to the design could be done in real-time.

Each plywood building block consists of a 9mm and 12mm soft plywood sheets that has been CNC-milled in a kit of parts. The elements are then engineered to be able to perform in any structural situation within the installation. In themselves, every element is relatively weak, but the redundant combination of the elements establishes a strong structure. The building blocks are kept together under tension with lateral steel rods placed in specific, repeating connection points between the elements.

Project Name: Real Virtuality At The Royal Academy of Arts

Design:
Gilles Retsin, Kevin Saey, Johan Wijesinghe

Engineering:
Manja Van de Worp,YIP Structural Engineering London

Pre-Fabrication:
Kevin Saey, Johan Wijesinghe, Mario Medina, Rida Qurashi, Effie Douroudi, Manuel Montoro, Tanishk Saha, Athina Athiana, Eleana Georgousi, Akhmet Khakimov, Eirini Tsomokou, Evangelia Triantafylla, Vicente Sánchez Seoane, Ming Liu, Po-Fu Yang, Evgenia Krassakopoulou, Ning Zheng, Keshia Lim, Joana Calado Correia, Chuan Tian, Mengmeng Zhao, Pablo Maldonado, Gilles Willems, Nadia Souki, Shuting Guo, YenFen Huang, HungDa Chien, Charles Wu.

On-Site Construction:
Isaie Bloch, Brecht Reynaert, Kevin Saey, Johan Wijesinghe

The Bartlett School of Architecture:
Design Computation Lab:,Mollie Claypool, Manuel Jimenez, Gilles Retsin, Vicente Soler
Bartlett B-Made: Niamh Grace, David Shanks, Mads Peterson, Alex McCann, John Henshaw

Location: London, United Kingdom
Augmented Reality: Fologram https://fologram.com/
Photography: Studio NAARO
With the support of MetsaWood.