Workshop 04: After the Tide – Tracing Heritage through AI and XR: Generative Narratives, Spatial Evidence, and Immersive Public Engagement
Workshop provider:
CHEN Xi, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, xi-ceci9.chen@connect.polyu.hk
ZHANG Yueying, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, yueying2025.zhang@connect.polyu.hk
Sky LO Tian Tian, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, tt2lo@polyu.edu.hk
Description of the workshop:
When traditional ancient paintings are reawakened, what will we see? Will it be bustling crowds, lively marketplaces, or a reimagined everyday life? Once the tides of history have receded, what spatial memories truly remain here? How did the figures in the paintings live, interact, choose to stay, and why did they leave?
This workshop aims to explore how AI and virtual reality technologies can collaboratively support the transformation of spatial narratives in architecture heritage. Firstly, by using AI-assisted techniques to revitalise traditional Chinese painting, participants will identify narrative threads within the behaviour of figures, spatial structures and cultural contexts depicted in the artwork. The workshop will then demonstrate how these methods can be extended to real-world architectural heritage contexts, transforming spatial traces into interactive virtual reality narrative experiences.
Firstly, the workshop will showcase a newly developed augmented reality (AR) programme, allowing participants to experience the artistic concepts of traditional Chinese painting alongside experimental AI aesthetics, and to reconstruct and understand the relationship between people and heritage spaces within the paintings.
Building on this, the workshop will further explore how to transform implicit clues found in historical imagery, such as heritage spaces, behaviours and culture from spatial forensic perspective, into interactive narratives that the public can explore. Participants will experience a VR prototype inspired by the fishing village of Tai O in Hong Kong. Using Meta Quest 3 devices, participants will observe, interact with and compare different spatial clues, piecing together the deep connections between spatial memory and cultural identity.
This workshop is open to researchers, students and practitioners in architecture, design, cultural heritage, digital media, interactive design and related fields. No prior experience with Unity or VR development is required. We cordially invite you to join us in this exploration and reflection on Chinese aesthetics, collectively uncovering the vitality of heritage spaces empowered by computational design.
Duration of the workshop (dates and times):
Afternoon on Tuesday 8 September 2026, (half a day).
Acknowledgement:
Some of the VR materials’ visual effects were supported by ChatGPT (OpenAI), Doubao AI (ByteDance) and Hunyuan 3D (Tencent) for optimisation, while Veo 3 (Google) and Jimeng (ByteDance) for video generation. Claude-Opus-4.6 (Anthropic) was used to support code optimisation. Some architecture 3D assets were sourced from Sketchfab under Free Standard License (TetraCG, n.d.). The authors independently carried out scene construction, interaction design and VR integration.
