Technology is creating new ways to experience housing, for the resident, for the designer, and for the property manager. One such technology is virtual reality: The power to see and use images to understand, feel, sell, and collaborate is now at our fingertips—or comfortably strapped to our heads.
Resident Reality
Throughout their work on the 2018 MFE Concept Community, developer AMLI Residential and architect partner Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) have looked at how virtual reality will start influencing residents’ education, informing them in an entertaining and engaging way about what's behind their apartment walls and how it can affect their health.
“We're working on [artificial intelligence]–driven sales agents who can teach and respond in real time to questions,” says Paul Cardis, founder of Avid Ratings, a customer experience company. “This is state-of-the-art technology but opens up possibilities like VR [virtual reality] being used to elucidate what's behind the walls and operational instructions of a home. It’s a way for our industry to communicate beyond just 'pretty pictures' of homes and get into meaningful metadata about the home/community.”
Luke Leung, a director at SOM, is leading part of the Concept Community, "Building Positive + Living Well," design process. He wants to find ways to teach residents how they can influence environmental effects on their own health, going beyond the simple act of recycling that many tenants consider their contribution to sustainability.
The project is located in the heart of Chicago, a vibrant city but one that provides minimal access to nature. Yet exposure to nature has been proven to have discernible health benefits, which is why some software developers are creating VR environments with beaches, mountain landscapes, waterfalls, and other calming sites to lessen the psychological effects winter may have on residents of areas like Chicago that are characterized by gray, cold months from December to March.
The experience could go beyond just a touch with nature. How about a virtual vacation? The idea may not be so farfetched when one considers that virtual reality has been shown to reduce anxiety in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a study reported in Psychological Medicine magazine.
“We'd like to explore [the idea of] a VR 'bar' in one or several of the lounge areas [of the Concept Community],” says Erin Hatcher, vice president of sustainability at AMLI Residential. “Residents could experience a relaxing vacation or exciting adventure for the evening without ever leaving their community. [And] from a sustainability standpoint, this would reduce their carbon footprint and could have mental and emotional health benefits. Additionally, I think it [would] speak to the technical possibilities of the apartment of the future.”
Developer Reality
Almost every developer and owner would love to help residents reduce or even eliminate their utility costs. AMLI is one company that's helping do so by sharing information with residents about how it's minimizing utility costs through energy-efficient design.
Many developers hope to lure new residents by promising to share the energy-efficiency cost savings their properties offer, which can be a very compelling reason to choose one property over another. AMLI helps its tenants understand the green features included in their apartment while giving them day-to-day management tips for leading a healthier life, says Hatcher. In the future, such information could be available at a virtual kiosk in the lobby of a property, offering a new way for residents to interact with their home's features.
Design Reality
Virtual reality promises many new ways to reach residents and to engage them on an ongoing basis, but how will VR influence the other aspects of development, like design? MFE sister brand BUILDER recently explored some new VR design solutions that offer the ability to "remove" time and space in design, in a new form of collaboration.
For instance, the Holodeck platform by graphics-chip company NVIDIA allows designers to import CAD models so that multiple users can navigate them as if they were a real structure, as well as edit and manipulate designs that make time and place irrelevant. New features rolled out by the firm in July allow users to “teleport” to different floors and elevations of any virtual structure and test different lighting schemes to visualize the impact of daylighting and shadows on plans.
In another example, last year Portland State University School of Architecture worked with Bynum Laboratories and Opsis Architecture to evaluate the effectiveness of a VR training tool to cool a room using as little energy as possible. The research focused on using VR’s gaming capabilities to leverage the users’ emotional relationship with a space, improving their ability and desire to better utilize passive and advanced systems such as shades, ceiling fans, lighting controls, and operable windows. The players were required to monitor anything that added to the room's energy consumption, a process that encouraged the use of natural ventilation and daylighting to keep energy use low. The game ended when the user could maintain a comfortable air temperature in the room or when he or she ran out of time.
After two groups ran through a trial game, the conclusion was that the technology had the potential to create a new generation of residents that could understand and use passive systems to manage their homes more efficiently. The potential impact of a more knowledgeable user base means that more of the knowledge regarding passive heating and cooling can be transferred beyond the modeled space and potentially reduce energy consumption in other spaces occupied by participants in the video-game training program.
The study also provided insight into the use of interactive VR to allow residents to interact with a space and its components before the design is final, collaboratively shaping the space where they will live.
How will you be using virtual reality next year and beyond 2020? Attend the MFE Conference Sept. 17–19 to join the discussion. Register now!
