The Dreamscape
A midground between imagination and perception.
Is it possible to create a haven where humans are bodily present in their ideas as they conceive them?
Can virtual reality, a frontier that merges the digital and physical worlds, offer a medium in which people can fully immerse themselves in their own creations?
Step into the Dreamscape experience to uncover the answers.
Discover
Dreamscape Bricks VR
Dreamscape Bricks VR is an experimental VR design tool that uses LEGO® bricks as building blocks for creating designs in a virtual design environment, fostering design creativity, and allowing experimentation. The application invites users to explore an immersive VR platform where they can be physically immersed in their ideas as they unfold, using a cutting-edge virtual reality medium that is powered by Unreal Engine.
Dreamscape Bricks VR is based on the DREAMSCAPE framework, allowing users to construct and explore their creations using LEGO-like blocks, focusing on the embodiment, experience, and manipulation aspects of the design process. With intuitive controls and interactions, Dreamscape Bricks VR transcends the limitations of traditional CAD systems, offering a unique and immersive design environment that brings your ideas to life.
THE FRAMEWORK
Introducing the
DREAMSCAPE Framework
The DREAMSCAPE framework, which stands for Digital Reality Environment as A Medium for Studio Collaboration in Architectural Production and Education, revolutionizes virtual reality (VR) design tools by focusing on the unique potentials and limitations of VR, moving away from conventional CAD vocabulary. This innovative approach creates a more intuitive and immersive design experience resembling natural design interactions in reality.
Many existing VR design tools rely on legacy CAD-inspired methods, restricting designers’ engagement with their work in virtual space. Traditional CAD interfaces and interactions, such as menus, buttons, point-and-click interfaces, and object manipulation commands, were developed primarily for 2D displays and keyboard and mouse input. These inherited interactions are not well suited for VR and can unnecessarily restrict designers’ engagement with their work in a virtual space.
The DREAMSCAPE framework counters these limitations with Dreamscape Bricks VR, which uses modular building components (virtual LEGO pieces) for future studies comparing design processes in physical and VR environments, promoting natural design interactions.
To achieve this, the DREAMSCAPE framework proposes a design process based on three activity types that occur iteratively in spatial and temporal succession:
EMBODIMENT
Conceptualize design ideas within the virtual environment
EXPERIENCE
Immerse oneself in the preliminary design output and evaluate its spatial and experiential qualities.
MANIPULATION
Modify the design output to conceive new ideas and refine the design iteratively.
Central to the DREAMSCAPE framework is the concept of direct manipulation, allowing users to interact with virtual objects using intuitive visual and physical actions.
By embracing the DREAMSCAPE framework, architects and designers can unlock the transformative power of VR as a medium for design activities, allowing for more immersive, intuitive, and engaging design experiences.
Features
Dreamscape Bricks VR is an experimental design tool that provides an immersive and intuitive design experience in VR, allowing users to construct and adapt architectural designs using virtual LEGO bricks, complete with a host of features such as user scaling, temporal rewinds, and intuitive interactions.
Intuitive Interactions
Experience natural finger movements and grip gestures with the VR controllers, enabling seamless adaptation to the immersive virtual environment while working with virtual LEGO bricks.
Scaling the User
Freely switch between three predefined scales – lifesize bricks (1:1), precision building scale (1:10), and figure-sized user (1:42.5) – to enhance precision, control, and immersive experiences during the design process.
Temporal Rewind
Gain control over the direction of time with the temporal control feature, backtrack through your design steps to correct mistakes and explore alternative design paths without starting over.
Other Features
Additional features include locomotion in VR, save/load system, tutorials, audio, haptics, photo mode, design stats, and event logging, ensuring a comprehensive and engaging virtual design experience.
The DREAMSCAPE research
The DREAMSCAPE project is an academic research by Oğuz Orkun Doma and Prof. Dr. Sinan Mert Şener from Istanbul Technical University. The project investigates the process of architectural design experienced by designers in physical medium and in virtual reality, as part of Doma’s PhD research. Check out the academic publications below to discover more about the project, its results, and insights.
DREAMSCAPE: Use of Virtual Reality in Architectural Design & Education
Oğuz Orkun DOMA. 2023.
Advisor: Prof. Dr. Sinan Mert Şener
Ph.D. thesis. Architectural Design Computing program, Istanbul Technical University. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.35256.11526
Dreamscape Bricks VR: An Experimental Virtual Reality Tool for Architectural Design
Oğuz Orkun DOMA, Sinan Mert ŞENER. 2022. Interaction Design and Architecture(s), 52, 234–258. https://doi.org/10.55612/s-5002-052-013
An investigation of architectural design process in physical medium and VR
A/Z : ITU Journal of Faculty of Architecture, 19(3), 145–163. https://doi.org/10.5505/itujfa.2022.77019
Using Modular Construction Brick-Based CAD in Online Design Education
CIVAE 2021 – 3rd Interdisciplinary and Virtual Conference on Arts in Education, July 14-15, 2021, Madrid, Spain (pp. 106–111)
Highlights from Sónar+D İstanbul 2023!
Dreamscape Bricks VR was showcased at Sónar+D İstanbul 2023 on Saturday, April 29th between 12:00 PM and 5:30 PM.
Throughout the event, participants immersed themselves in the world of Dreamscape Bricks VR, had the opportunity to explore and create using LEGO® bricks as building blocks, unleashing their creativity and ingenuity in the virtual design environment, and learned more about the innovative design approach and technology behind the application.