IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 49

developing the game has entailed negotiation
and teamwork aplenty: Lending their viewpoints
and expertise are a number of nonfaculty
design professionals, including architects, interior
designers, and contractors.
The strong response the working prototype
has received from said practitioners demonstrates
that it has implications beyond just teaching
architecture students. “We want to apply the game
to other courses and other disciplines, interior
design and historic preservation being the most
obvious,” says Hall. “It has a lot of applications,
especially for people going through the intern
process and preparing for examinations.” Other
schools or individuals could build upon the
platform, too, making it even more interactive.
“People could develop modules and start to build
on it in an open-source manner.”

In envisioning the tool, professors in both
departments have benefited from getting an
outsiders’ perspective on their respective genres.
“Early on, we admitted that we are not game players,
and the game professors admitted that they are
not necessarily knowledgeable about architecture,”
Hall recalls. “We don’t have preconceptions
about each others’ field, which allows us to ask any
question, to throw out the ‘what-ifs.’” The course
has also changed how he teaches. “The process
of developing this game has forced students
to consider the consequences of their decision,”
he explains. “They need to think strategically
about decisions they’re making and understand
them as part of a matrix of outcomes. Observing
that has helped me understand the importance
of making discrete bits of information relevant
and interconnected.”
Totten, too, has learned much about the
process and psychology of design from his game
experience and vice versa. He’s especially excited
about the potential for spatial-design disciplines
to harness walk-through technology powered
by game engines, an interactive tool that would
let end users tour themselves through a realistic
rendering of the space in development. “SketchUp
and Revit both have walk-through capabilities,
but they are more like videos; they aren’t interactive,”
he explains. Game engines, in contrast, let users
see an environment from a first-person perspective.
Such an intimate tour would help clients become
more invested in the design concept and also give

their designer more accurate feedback about
what doesn’t work before the concept gets too fully
developed, which could help reduce change orders
and cut costs. “A game engine is the perfect
way to assess whether the design will work for the
occupants”—both functionally and psychologically,
Totten explains. “It takes pressure off the designer
to have to answer those questions and not be
able to test them until the design is done. It makes
design a more collaborative process between the
designer and user. There is an element of scientific
method to it.”
Creating enhanced virtuality reality
walk-throughs sounds high-tech,
but Totten says it’s not complicated:
Get an iOS or Android developer license,
then set up a compatible game engine
like Unity. “That may entail a bit of
scripting—but you’d only need to do it
once to have the ability to look around,”
he says. Then plug your 3-D model
into Unity and view the results on your
tablet, TV, computer, or even full-height
touch-screen. “It could be really powerful
to give clients a ‘draft’ of their building
to walk around. It would change the design process
somewhat; instead of a client meeting being
a progress report, it becomes a play-testing session.
If you are iterating it the right way, you can do
this step before committing to the design. That’s
where it would be a huge cultural shift.” Virtuality
and gaming will effect not just how spaces are
designed, but also how those spaces are evaluated
and held accountable.

Gamers have other tools and devices that spatial
designers don’t have access to: the element of
fear, for instance. “In a game, you can create spaces
with elements that aren’t pleasurable,” notes
Totten. “I remember reading the section in Origins
of Architectural Pleasure about how to not create
vertigo and thinking, Yes! This is how to create
vertigo in a game!” He recently gave a talk at the
International Game Developers Association
about using enemies as what he terms “alternative
architecture.” “Make an enemy—one you can’t
fight—and use it to block access. You can use
a zombie like a moveable wall. I think architecture
needs more zombies.”

perspective

49



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013

IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013
IIDA Post-It initiative
Contents
Contributors
From IIDA
Behind the Issue
IIDA News
Design Dialogue
The Showroom of the Future
Working It
Hire Resolution
Get Your Game On
Design Decoded
Behind the Design
Viewpoints
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - Cover2
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - IIDA Post-It initiative
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 2
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - Contents
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 4
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 5
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - Contributors
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 7
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - From IIDA
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 9
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - Behind the Issue
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 11
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - IIDA News
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 13
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 14
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 15
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 16
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 17
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - Design Dialogue
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 19
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 20
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 21
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 22
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 23
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - The Showroom of the Future
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 25
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 26
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 27
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - Working It
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 29
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 30
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 31
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 32
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 33
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 34
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 35
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 36
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 37
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 38
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 39
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - Hire Resolution
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 41
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 42
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 43
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 44
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 45
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - Get Your Game On
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 47
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 48
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 49
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 50
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 51
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - Design Decoded
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 53
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - 54
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - Behind the Design
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - Viewpoints
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - Cover3
IIDA Perspective - Spring/Summer 2013 - Cover4
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