We inspire construction professionals to create fulfilling spaces where people feel at their best through animated renderings, 3D walkthroughs, 360° videos
We are delighted and proud of being one of the finalists of the Raising the Bar Award for Community.
Raising the Bar is an initiative from the West & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce that helps companies with their social responsibility aims. It enables companies to document and benchmark how they help local communities, education, the economy and the environment.
Join us to find who the winner are!
Wednesday 6th November 2019 6pm – 8.30pm Leeds Civic Hall
Virtual Reality (VR) is the game-changer in architecture visualization. It’s the innovative tool architects should use to most effectively communicate their design before building it.
VR allows you to create virtual environments and therefore experience them as you’re really in them. By wearing a particular headset, you are immersed right away in a 3D environment. You have the exact spatial awareness of the place you’re going to built. And that’s an incredibly powerful experience for both the designers and the clients. The designers can check their own projects and design, and so correct possible mistakes. The clients get a better understanding and feeling of what can be sometimes difficult to visualise.
In the video below, David Leonard of Leonard Design explains how architects and designers can benefit from including VR in their design process.
In conclusion, there’s no doubt that creating VR-ready 360° content is now a worthwhile investment and that professionals in the construction industry will considerably benefit from using this technology. ROSSO MATTO considers VR the game changer in architecture visualization and regularly creates VR-ready 360° videos.
“London Bridge Is Falling Down” is one the most popular traditional English nursery songs. World-wide there are different versions, but the core vision is pretty much the same. No matter the material of which it’s built, over time the bridge looses its load-carrying capacity and eventually falls down.
Kids sing the lyrics lightheartedly as collapsing is the natural innocuous way a bridge ends. But what the composition really describes is one if the worst structural failure you’d prefer not to see. The song actually omits to mention the tragic consequences the falling of a bridge can have.
The Polcevera Viaduct
The Morandi Bridge (officially Polcevera Viaduct) in Italy sadly reminded them to the world last summer.
The Morandi Bridge in Genoa, Italy – Photo by Michele Ferraris, 19 August 2018 – CC BY-SA 4.0
Built between 1963 and 1967, the bridge linked two districts of the city of Genoa and crossed the river Polcevera. It became famous in August 2018 when it partially collapsed, killing 43 people who were crossing it. The continuous restoration works carried out since the 1970s were not sufficient to prevent the tragic event.
What’s most worrying and shameful is that it was not an isolated case for the country. The newspaper Corriere della Sera reported it was the 11th bridge to fall down in Italy since 2013. [1]
Bridges are highly stressed structures and on the long run they suffer from fatigue and pressure. This doesn’t mean that they cannot be restored and their life extended. 3D modelling can save lives and the environment. It can be a pivotal tool to verify bridges’ current operational safety and upgrade them.
Arup’s Bridge Information Model
The Arup’s Bridge Information Model (BrIM) is a great example of this application.
The 3D models help the working team to visualise advanced calculations, and enable advanced static and fatigue modelling under different scenarios. The expertise and knowledge acquired during the ongoing bridge renovation programme is then used to design new bridges. [2]
Arup, in collaboration with RHDHV and Greisch, has developed a sustainable remediation programme to extend bridges’ life for at least 30 years. Based on digital design, it will allow the refurbishment of eight of the 200 bridges in the Netherlands risking collapse. In the video below Arup explains in details their approach and how 3D models were used to find the most effective solutions.
Sustainability in architectural projects is a hot trend. We are all familiar with the concept of sustainability as a process or state that can be maintained at a certain level over a period of time, causing little or no damage to the environment.
The Brundtland Commission described sustainable development as development that
“meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” [1]
The UK Government in the Annual Report 2000, January 2001, declared that:
“Maintaining high and stable levels of economic growth is one of the key objectives of sustainable development. Abandoning economic growth is not an option. But sustainable development is more than just economic growth. The quality of growth matters as well as the quantity.”
The above mentioned definitions focus mainly on the economic and environmental aspects of sustainability. But there are other two pillars fundamental to sustainability: the human and social factors.
Human sustainability means maintaining human capital, which is composed by ‘the health, education, skills, knowledge, leadership and access to services’. [2]
Social sustainability means maintaining social capital, which is investments and services that create the basic supporting structure for society. [2]
Is it possible to include the 4 pillars of sustainability in architectural projects?
It surely is, regardless the size of the scheme! The video below shows a great example of how a small timber modular home was designed having in mind keeping a family together, enhancing multi-generational living and sharing responsibilities and costs.
Do you include the 4 pillars of sustainability in your architectural projects?
References:
[1] United Nations. 1987. “Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development.” General Assembly Resolution 42/187, 11 December 1987.
360° videos are becoming more and more popular and as a result they will be increasingly used in architecture. They are an attractive and immersive type of video which let the viewers move around the space you created, allowing them to control what they see.
The ability of the viewer to change perspective comes from computer games. It spread through the invention of Virtual Reality headsets like Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard.
360° videos encourage engagement. Most importantly, clients seem to respond better to your design when they have an interactive experience. They feel like being in the project.
70% of marketers who have used 360° videos say it has increased engagement for them: they saw over 3 times the conversion rate of traditional video content and a 30% higher repeated view rate. (Source: http://www.webvideos.co.uk).
Likewise the same can happen for architects and designers.
In short, there’s no doubt that creating VR-ready 360° content is now a worthwhile investment. Certainly professionals in the construction industry will considerably benefit from using this technology.
How many projects have you discussed with your clients using a 360° video?
Want to find out more about why it’s a good idea to use video to promote your projects?
On 15 April 2019, the Notre-DameCathedral, in Paris, was severely damaged by a fire that was extinguished after 15 hours. As consequence the cathedral’s wood-and-lead spire and the roof were destroyed, together with several works of art. However the stone vaulted ceiling below the roof saved great part of the interior, by preventing the fire to spread too extensively.
While it took 181 years (1163-1344) to build the Cathedral, we almost lost it in less than one day. Notre-Dame is the symbol of Paris and this event shocked France and the entire world.
The French President Emmanuel Macron promised that
Notre Dame will be rebuilt in five years, more beautiful than before
and the fundraising campaign in support of this raised €800 million in just 24 hours.
Can we really reconstruct the Cathedral in just 5 years?
There’s a chance we can make it through a forefront imaging technology. The art historian Andrew Tallon was very passionate about Notre Dame. He did a full laser scan of the building with the assistance of his colleague Paul Blaer.
Tallon and Blaer’s laser data consist of 1 billion data points, which create a very accurate 3-D model. Therefore we now have a full digital detailed re-creation of the building that we can use as base to start the reconstruction. In the video below, Tallon explains how they created the 3D model.
Cutting-edge technologies are changing the way we design and build.
Using videos to promote architectural projects is a great idea. We are visual people: videos are engaging and easier to remember. We also love stories and video is an awesome means of storytelling.
It’s the trend. HubSpot reports that 87% of consumers want to see more video content from brands and that 71% of people watch more video than they did a year ago.
In a video you can tell a story your clients will remember. It creates a sense of connection and clients can experience and feel your project as if they’re in it. It’s easier for them to fall in love with it right on the spot.
At ROSSO MATTO we love doing 3D walkthroughs and 360° videos to show the clients how the project will look like and let them experience how it feels to be in it.
Are you telling your story in a way that your clients will remember and fall for?