Workshop 06

Workshop 06: Crossing the Threshold

Workshop provider:

Max Frühwirt – Institute of Architecture and Media, Graz University of Technology, m.fruehwirt@tugraz.at
Yuting Chen – School of Design, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 24056353r@connect.polyu.hk

Description:

The wooden portals of Himachal Pradesh (five survive worldwide) are among the oldest examples of vernacular wooden architecture in the world and carry a full structural and iconographic language that was later translated into stone. The applicants’ previous research has produced high-fidelity photogrammetry-based 3D models of the inner and outer portals of the Lakshana Devi Temple, Brahmour, as a result of field documentation between 2006 and 2019. A comparative stone reference has also been documented with the 6th-century temple at Deogarh.

Data available at workshop start:

• Photogrammetry meshes of the inner and outer Lakshana Devi portals.
• Field documentation (images and plans) across the region, 2006 – 2019.
• Stone-counterpart references for a wood-stone comparison.

Description: Timber to Gesture

3D printed detail + Augmented reality overlay
The workshop objective is to make a digital model touchable, restoring the wooden portal to the embodied register it was originally designed as. By 3D printing simplified physical representations of parts of the portal enriching them with digital information using augmented reality, the model becomes experiential. Using different layers of information, the created detail reveals information like grain direction, joinery logic and iconographic reading.

The workshop therefore produces a tangible instrument for engaging with the portal. Each team leaves with a fabricated fragment, their own recreated detail, reproduced at a scale that can be picked up and turned over. After being paired with a layer of digital information, the piece comes alive whenever it is touched or moved a certain way. Approaching the fragment, a user first meets the geometry of the structural piece itself. While handling it, the augmentation unfolds additional readings a normal showcase would keep hidden. The meaning of a motif or the structural reason for a proportion are shown. The deliverable is therefore a small piece of a bigger whole that becomes its own archive, which returns the portal, however briefly, to the interactive object it was originally envisioned as.

Pre-requisits:

• own laptop with Rhinoceros 8 and / or Blender 5.0 or newer; Unity 6 (AR Foundation); 3D slicer (e.g., Cura, Orca, Prusa, Elegoo).
• Intermediate Rhino or Blender skills for manual reconstruction and mesh clean-up;
• Basic Unity skills helpful but not required.
• No prior AR or fabrication experience required.

Workshop type:

2 day workshop on-site

Number of participants:

12-16 participants

Workshop schedule:

Day 1 – Segment & Fabricate

Day 2 – Augment & Assemble

Intended outcome:

Final deliverable (per team): one fabricated portal fragment + interactive augmented reality overlay providing additional interaction and knowledge layer, with photo/video documentation.