----------------------------Original message---------------------------- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FROM: Greg Orwig (206) 543-2580 <[log in to unmask]> DATE: June 14, 1996 Virtual architect at UW's HIT Lab pioneering design in cyberspace Today, many people browse the World Wide Web instead of visiting real places. Yet, nobody would mistake viewing a web site for an actual visit to the Louvre, the Library of Congress or the surface of the moon. Imagine a three-dimensional web that captures what is missed from the physical world -- an immersive experience which is explored by moving through space rather than clicking on underlined words. Architects at the University of Washington are realizing that vision by developing virtual spaces which make browsing the web as easy as taking a stroll. Dace Campbell, a virtual architect at the Human Interface Technology Lab (HIT Lab) at the UW, is leading a renaissance to design virtual spaces not meant to be built in the physical world. "I see this as a call to arms for architects," Campbell said. "Anyone who has browsed the web is bewildered and overwhelmed at first because its not laid out in the way were used to experiencing our environment. And that confusion will be even more intense as we move into three- dimensional web applications. Architecture -- whether it uses bricks and mortar in the physical world or digital data on the Internet -- is the perfect metaphor to give meaning to a three-dimensional environment." Campbell and his colleagues at the UW are taking their research to the global design community, teaching a seminar on virtual architecture in July at the Zenobio Institute in Venice Italy. For his Master of Architecture design thesis, Campbell developed a virtual gallery that offers spectacular, three-dimensional tours of virtual worlds created at the HIT Lab, a joint research unit of the Washington Technology Center and the UW. Campbell's project examined architectural principles that help people orient themselves in the physical world and can also be applied in the virtual realm. A doorway, for example, is universally understood in the physical world to be a portal from one space to another and may be a more intuitive symbol for links between virtual spaces than the underlined blue text now used on the web. Some principles that govern physical architecture, such as gravity, don't apply in virtual architecture. To convey this in his gallery, Campbell oriented the rooms and displays in different directions so visitors would understand there is no global "up" and "down" in cyberspace. But the virtual realm has its own set of limitations -- hard disk space and network bandwidth -- which control the amount of detail in a design. "Information technology is changing society so that what is physical or tangible isn't always as important as how data is exchanged," Campbell said. "Banks used to be large, stone structures that represented a secure place to leave our money. Today, we realize our money is no longer in a physical place. We may never even need to go to a bank. But we do need to be able to access money as digital information, and it should be as easy and as intuitive as navigating in the physical world." In 1994, the UW College of Architecture and Urban Planning and the HIT Lab established the Community and Environmental Design and Simulation (CEDeS) Laboratory as a center for research and teaching in the application of virtual reality to architecture. Led by Campbell and Jim Davidson, a lecturer in the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, the CEDeS Lab has demonstrated the potential of digital media to conceptualize and simulate design projects ranging from a proposed downtown Seattle park to the renovation of the historic Arsenale naval shipyard in Venice, Italy. The UW is one of only a handful of institutions nationwide with a curriculum focusing on the leading-edge field of virtual architecture. Currently, architects design by sketching with pencil and paper, then developing the plans with computer-aided design (CAD) programs, with the option of producing three-dimensional virtual models of the plans. However, software is being developed that would allow architects to design a building from beginning to end while immersed in virtual reality. "Virtual reality can be an invaluable design tool by allowing architects to immerse themselves in a virtual model of a structure before it is built; there's a lot you simply cant get from a two-dimensional picture," explained Campbell. "But simulation of physical structures is only the beginning. As we become a more digital society, were doing more of our banking, shopping and working electronically -- in digital, or virtual, environments rather than physical banks, malls and offices. Architecture is the key to making the virtual world as easy to understand and navigate in as the physical world." ### For more information, contact Campbell at (206) 616-1444, [log in to unmask], or see his web site at http://www.hitl.washington.edu/people/dace/portfoli/thesis; or contact Alden Jones at (206) 543-7994, [log in to unmask] ****************************************** Greg Orwig Engineering News Writer University of Washington Office of News and Information, Box 351207 Gerberding Hall, Room B-54 Seattle, WA 98195 206-543-2580 (phone) 206-685-0658 (fax) ******************************************