Hasta La Ideas

Interdisciplinary art collective BeAnotherLab has developed a virtual reality headset that allows users to experience what it would be like to live in the skin of someone from the opposite sex.

The Machine To Be Another (pictured above) was designed by BeAnotherLab as a low-budget experiment that examines how people with different social, theological or cultural backgrounds can experience life from another’s perspective.

One of the tests conducted using the technology is called the Gender Swap experiment and invites users to discover, “what would it be like to see through the eyes of the opposite sex?”

“Designed as an interactive performance installation, the Machine offers users the possibility of interacting with a piece of another person’s life story by seeing themselves in the body of this person and listening to his or her thoughts,” explained BeAnotherLab.

Users wear a pair of immersive goggles from virtual reality firm Oculus that display a video being transmitted in real time from a camera attached to another headset worn by a performer, who can be an actor or anyone interested in describing a particular aspect of their life.

The user and performer agree on a set of movements and actions and act them out at the same time in identical spaces, with the performer describing their thoughts or feelings about what they are doing and interacting with.

This audio description is picked up by a microphone worn by the performer and can be heard by the user through a set of earphones.

As well as enabling men and women to temporarily swap gender, performances have been arranged to allow people to gain insight into the bodies and minds of a wheelchair user and an immigrant in Spain. A mother and her teenage daughter have also tried out the headset.

“Our main interest through this approach is to use the Machine as a tool to help promote empathy among individuals of different social, cultural and ideological contexts,” said the designers. “However, we are also open to new points of views and interests that might be offered by the collaborators.”

BeAnotherLab used readily available technologies including webcams, mobile phones with built in digital compasses for tracking movement, and Arduino microcontrollers to create the low budget set up, which will be made available online as an open source initiative.

The project is based on a field of neuroscience called ’embodiment’ that examines how the form of the body affects the way we think and act. The designers explained that they are interested in developing the project with psychologists and neurologists working in fields such as rehabilitation, body perception and conflict resolution.

The Machine To Be Another project was initiated by BeAnotherLab with support from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and tested during a residency at L’estruch, a creative laboratory in Sabadell, Spain.

All images are courtesy of BeAnotherLab.

The post Virtual reality headset by BeAnotherLab
lets users try swapping gender appeared first on Dezeen.

Cologne 2014: two shingle-clad houses converge to form this year’s Das Haus home of the future installation at the imm cologne fair by Copenhagen designer Louise Campbell (+ slideshow).

Das Haus is an annual commission that allows a designer to imagine what their ideal future home would be like.

Louise Campbell designed a 240-square-metre dwelling devoid of interior walls, with openings at each end rather than doors.

“There are no walls dividing the various zones, only soft textiles that can be rolled up or down as desired,” said Campbell.

Two timber-framed buildings intersect at an angle to one another, with the exposed beams and columns inside coloured grey and white to distinguish the different structures.

These two elements are designed to represent the coming together of masculine and feminine within the home. A long dining table sits in the centre of where they meet.

“There are no secrets and no pressure – the ideal marriage. Perhaps indeed the ideal house,” Campbell said.

A line of beds for sleeping and lounging runs along one side of the space, in front of patterned fabric panels that line the walls.

Campbell modelled the kitchen on a workshop, hanging 573 tools on the white pegboard wall behind the counters.

“Personally I feel very much at home here,” said Campbell. “Where floral wallpaper in a kitchen would not naturally present itself at the top of my list, plenty of fine tools do. Even so, I’d much rather sleep in an imaginatively decorated space than in a bare white bedroom.”

A 100-year-old stoneware bathtub has been placed in the middle of the living area and an upside-down canoe is balanced in the rafters.

The house is clad in larch shingles with coloured tips and the roof is perforated with a pattern of diamonds, which becomes less open at the top of the walls.

Campbell’s design is installed at the centre of this year’s imm cologne design trade fair, which continues until Sunday.

Last year’s conceptual home of the future was created by Italian designer Luca Nichetto, who installed an eco-friendly environment full of plants. London studio Doshi Levien designed 2011 Das Haus, envisaged as part of a dense urban neighbourhood.

Read on for more text sent to Dezeen by imm cologne:

A house with two sides

» Das Haus – Interiors on Stage 2014 by Louise Campbell: a slow house full of handmade things
» Under the title 0-100. (Made to measure), Louise Campbell sounds the depths between man and woman, reason and emotion
» The very personal vision of a home the Danish designer has created for the imm cologne is unreservedly playful and sensuous

What Louise Campbell has erected in Pure Village (Hall 2.2) at the imm cologne with such incredible passion for detail isn’t one house, it’s two! Two timber-framed, prototypical houses with an exposed beam structure that look as if they were positioned at an angle to one another on the floor of the hall and then pushed inside one another like a telescope. The posts of one house have been painted white, those of the other a light grey. The rectangular overlap in the middle created by the intersection of the two volumes marks the spot where opposites are reconciled and the two houses merge into one.

Half designer portrait, half visionary blueprint

Das Haus – Interiors on Stage is the simulation of a home at the international interior design fair imm cologne. Every year, the imm cologne nominates a new designer whose plans are then used for the layout and furnishings. The furniture, colours, materials, lighting and accessories chosen by the Guest of Honour add up to an individually configured interior design. But this holistically conceived proposal isn’t just meant to be forward-looking; it should be practical as well – and above all authentic. Das Haus is an example of how it is possible to create a world of one’s own that becomes an expression of one’s own personality. Besides picking up on current interior design trends, the project also addresses the public’s aspirations and social change.

Louise Campbell turns Das Haus into an attractive stage for relationships

The structure, which has a footprint of 240 square metres and is made of wooden beams, larch shingles and lots and lots of fabrics, turns out to be a thoroughly attractive and seductive experimental setup. Louise Campbell wants to figure out how opposites can be reconciled through design. And in her eyes, the biggest conceivable contradiction in our lives is the (in-)compatibility of man and woman, of reason and emotion – which makes a partnership between the two the biggest experiment of all.

“I don’t understand why we don’t question something as fundamental as love more,” explains Louise Campbell provocatively. “What is love? How does a designer approach these questions? By circling around our physical bases through form.” She wanted to design Das Haus as a home “for him and her, for slow and fast, soft and hard, light and dark, colour and material, British and Scandinavian – with a tranquil space in the middle where everything fits together with some quirks, but no conflicts.” And in this case, “him and her” doesn’t just mean male and female, but the masculine and feminine side within each and every one of us.

Interior philosophy: omitting walls gives the other person more space

The Danish designer shows how both “he” and “she” can make themselves very much at home within these contradictions – and does away with various interior conventions in the process: Das Haus is one big, open space, the bed is a 16-metre-wide piece of furniture for sprawling, lounging and sleeping on, the bathtub stands in the middle of the living area and the kitchen is located in the man’s domain. In the middle, he and she meet at the big table in harmony. There are no proper rooms; instead, the various areas of the home are defined by the furnishings and accessories.

Besides featuring Louise Campbell’s own designs such as the LC Shutters lamps from Louis Poulsen and Zanotta’s Veryround Chair, Das Haus also contains a variety of products by other designers. Everything else was made by hand in Louise Campbell’s Copenhagen studio. And because she felt it was important to include something old as well, a 100-year-old stoneware bathtub was borrowed from the museum collection of Villeroy & Boch AG and set up in the middle of the living area. “There are no walls dividing the various zones, only soft textiles that can be rolled up or down as desired. There are no secrets and no pressure – the ideal marriage. Perhaps indeed the ideal house,” says Louise Campbell of her interior concept, in which everything is designed from the inside out.

A tool wall with 573 tools

A large wall surface in the kitchen zone is one of the highlights of Das Haus. For Louise Campbell, the kitchen is both a workshop and a place to cook, and she has thus hung around 573 tools of every kind imaginable on the exterior wall. The big table is used for stirring, mixing, sawing, painting, hammering and sewing. And whilst technology is notable only by its absence, the house contains the instruments required for every conceivable kind of handicraft. Finding the right measure – the right balance between reason and emotion, perfection and cosiness, technology and craftsmanship, hectic activity and total relaxation – is a key theme for Louise Campbell, both in her design and in her version of Das Haus, which is why she has so aptly named it: 0-100. (Made to measure).

A playful house that exudes sensuousness

“Personally I feel very much at home here,” says Louise Campbell of her Haus. “So where floral wallpaper in a kitchen would not naturally present itself at the top of my list, plenty of fine tools do. Even so, I’d much rather sleep in an imaginatively decorated space than in a bare white bedroom.”

Louise Campbell’s house is a celebration of physical existence in the here and now. Digital projections are entirely absent. The warm lighting, exquisite textiles, comfortable rest zone and many playful details and accessories are a reminder of what is truly responsible for the quality of our homes and lives. Louise Campbell exemplifies this attitude by lending a willing hand with the construction of Das Haus, stapling, painting and draping as it takes shape. By celebrating classical sensuality and all that is handmade, her interior concept is the diametric opposite of the technophile tendencies that have become so widespread in today’s world. The designer cites Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Sherril Jaffe’s Scars Make Your Body More Interesting, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and The Cure’s Wild Mood Swings as the sources of her creative inspiration.

Das Haus 2014 is a beacon of feminine design

By creating a low-tech house with open spaces that can be used flexibly to provide scope for all its occupants’ (contradictory) facets, Louise Campbell is continuing the Das Haus – Interiors on Stage series with a design that is just as remarkable as its predecessors. In 2012, Anglo-Indian designer team Nipa Doshi and Jonathan Levien were in charge of the new format’s debut, staging what was effectively an organically evolved space that permits communicative interaction between occupants and cultures. In 2013, Italian product designer Luca Nichetto created the next instalment of the design event as an elegant ensemble open to nature on all sides. Das Haus is located within the Pure Village format, which has been given a spacious new home in Hall 2.2 at the 2014 event.

The post Das Haus conceptual future home installed
at imm cologne by Louise Campbell appeared first on Dezeen.

Over 170,000 visitors to this year’s Sochi Winter Olympics will be able to have their faces scanned and recreated on the facade of a building as part of an installation by London designer Asif Khan.

Named MegaFaces and dubbed the “Mount Rushmore of the digital age”, Asif Khan‘s facade is designed to function like a huge pin screen where narrow tubes move in and out, transforming a flat facade into an interactive three-dimensional surface capable of morphing into the shape of any face.

The facade will display up to three eight-metre-high faces at a time for a period of 20 seconds each, and anyone visiting the games will be able to participate by visiting a 3D photo booth and having their face digitally scanned. Five photographs will be taken of each participant’s face from different angles, before being assembled into a single 3D image.

After a scan has been made, the 3D image will be fed through to a engine and cable system attached to over 10,000 narrow cylinders, called actuators, that can extended out to lengths of up to two metres to recreate the shape of the face.

Each actuator will have an RGB-LED light at its tip, making it possible to precisely calculate the position of every pixel.

A fabric membrane is to be stretched over the facade to give a smooth surface to the changing forms, and the actuators beneath will be laid out on a triagonal grid to disguise junctions between pixels.

“In the area of a three-dimensional modelling of organic forms a trigonal structure is more suitable, because it makes three-dimensional forms appear natural and flowing even with only a small amount of pixels,” said Valentin Spiess, the chief engineer on the project.

The system will take approximately one minute to calculate a three-dimensional model from the five individual pictures taken.

“The difficulty in our case was the development of a system that would meet all the requirements of the project in relation to speed, usability and image quality,” said Spiess.

“We couldn’t ask people to sit still for a whole minute and have themselves 3D laser scanned. The process needed to be as fast and simple as using a commercial photo booth,” he explained.

Images will be queued up on a digital scheduler and users will be informed what time to expect their face on the wall. Each participant will also be emailed a personal 20-second video so they can relive the moment.

MegaFaces will be installed on the facade of a temporary pavilion belonging to Russian telecom operator MegaFon and will remain in place for the duration of the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

Here’s a video showing part of the facade being tested:

The post Asif Khan designs a “Mount Rushmore of the
digital age” for the Sochi Winter Olympics appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen has teamed up with London department store Selfridges to present a futuristic concept store, featuring an augmented-reality watch store and a walkaround digital model of Zaha Hadid’s £300 million superyacht (+ slideshow).

The Jazz superyacht designed by Hadid for German shipbuilder Blohm + Voss (pictured above) will be the biggest and most expensive item ever sold at Selfridges.

Visitors will be able to explore an augmented reality scale model of the 90-metre yacht using a tablet computer. A representative of Blohm + Voss will fly over to London to discuss purchase options with potential customers.

The installation is part of The Imagine Shop, which opens on the ground floor at Selfridges on Monday 6 January and runs until 2 March as part of the Festival of Imagination – a store-wide festival that will “explore the nature, power and positive impact of imagination”.

Curated by Dezeen, the Imagine Shop will showcase future-facing products and explore how augmented reality could be used in future to create an immersive retail experience.

Large items like cars, yachts or houses can be experienced virtually, existing only as digital models on a tablet or smartphone, but anchored to a physical location via a 2D “marker” pattern that tells the software where to place the object. This means customers can walk round, and even through, objects as if they were really there.

As well as the yacht, the shop will feature an augmented reality Dezeen Watch Store pop-up, where customers will be able to virtually try on a range of watches.

By wrapping a paper “marker” around their wrist and looking at a screen, customers will see the watches modelled on their wrists in real time.

Other products on sale in the store will be grouped in three categories: Future Beauty, featuring objects that express a futuristic aesthetic; Future Life, including new product typologies we may use in the future; and Wearable Technology.

“Dezeen has long been a rich source of reference and inspiration for the creative teams at Selfridges, and we’re delighted to finally be collaborating with them on such a uniquely imaginative project,” said Linda Hewson, director of creative and windows at Selfridges.

The augmented reality technology has been provided by London 3D technology company Inition. “Inition is excited about the opportunity bringing our emerging technology production experience to present a world-acclaimed architect’s designs in a retail setting,” said Inition producer Ainsley Henn.

He added: “Being able to walk around a spectacular Zaha Hadid yacht as it ‘floats’ in front of you is very different to flicking through a traditional brochure. As far as we are aware, this is the most expensive retail item to be promoted in such a way.”

Festival of Imagination is at Selfridges, 400 Oxford Street, London W1A 1AB from 16 January. The Imagine Shop is open from 6 January.   

The post Dezeen’s Imagine Shop at Selfridges features
augmented-reality watch store and Zaha yacht appeared first on Dezeen.

People could immerse themselves in a huge fabric cocoon at this interactive installation by architect and artist Sophia Chang (+ slideshow).

Sophia Chang stretched huge sheets of Lycra around frames to create the network of tunnels and enclosed spaces through the interior of the Invivia Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The structure extended between different entrances and wrapped around the base of the gallery’s spiral staircase. There were also a handful of openings, which framed windows to the spaces outside.

“The softened geometries of this expansive fabric insertion frame both people and their context, while confounding the experience of interior and exterior, wall and room, hiding and revealing places to be found and explored,” said Chang.

The inside of the space was separated into two disconnected halves. Visitors could occupy either sides, meaning they could see the silhouettes of other people behind the dividing layer of fabric.

According to the designer, the experience was intended to represent the feeling of being inside walls, in the space known as poché.

“Here poché receives a more ambiguous reinterpretation,” said Chang. “What could be understood as a wall or reminiscent space from one vantage point, becomes an inhabitable room from another.”

Photography is by Anita Kan.

Here’s a project description from Sophia Chang:

Suspense

Suspense is a recent architectural installation by Sophia Chang at the INVIVIA Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Allen Sayegh (co-founder of INVIVIA) and Ingeborg Rocker (co-founder of Rocker-Lange Architects) curated and sponsored the interactive installation, an unexpected fabric space that manipulates the architectural frame to blur the boundaries between inside and outside and piques the viewers’ awareness of their bodies in space.

The softened geometries of this expansive fabric insertion frame both people and their context, while confounding the experience of interior and exterior, wall and room; hiding and revealing places to be found and explored. Upon entering the piece, both occupant and environment are estranged, creating greater awareness of one’s self, one’s relation to others, and relationships to one’s surroundings.

The installation’s curved rooms are made from Lycra fabric that is suspended between rectangular frames, which capture moments of the original context and pull them into the suspended space. Visitors occupy both sides of the frames, creating playful interaction between those enclosed within the fabric and those outside.

Looking around, the smooth fabric surface breaks open to a view of an old stone wall, a glimpse of brick, a stair, or out to the street. The re-captured everyday appears distant and other.

The installation is conceived as multiple layers of poché. The term commonly refers to the space within walls, here poché receives a more ambiguous reinterpretation: what could be understood as a wall or reminiscent space from one vantage point, becomes an inhabitable room from another. The complexity of the curved forms precludes immediate understanding of the total piece and allows for the visitor’s perception of the space to shift as they continue to discover new places to sit, contemplate, walk, and watch within the gallery.

Neighbouring wall spaces are activated as people encounter each other through the fabric. The installation is an ‘open work’ (Umberto Eco) as it is not limited to a single reading or a predetermined range of readings but rather encourages multiple readings. With changes of light, occupation, and the flexing of the geometries, new realisations continuously become possible.

The post Sophia Chang installs stretchy fabric
tunnels through a gallery appeared first on Dezeen.