Project Team Experiences Virtual Reality

Client Ron Yara introduced EH and builder Chris Quinn of Red House, Inc. to virtual reality tech recently.  In the images here, Yara coaches Quinn, slated to begin construction this month on the home EH designed for Yara and his wife, Maggie Eaton, as he is “walking through” the 3D model of the home.

This was EH’s first experience viewing one of our projects in VR–both thrilling and incredibly useful.  The VR experience enabled the team to preview the entire interior and exterior of the home and offer feedback for spaces and finishes..  For the builder, VR offered a quick way to grasp the building as a whole and anticipate the work that he and his crew will undertake.  EH sees huge benefits to employing VR technology–there is no equivalent to experiencing architecture true to scale like this prior to construction.  It enhances the entire team’s understanding of the project and builds excitement for what’s to come.  Since EH uses BIM  (building information modeling) software to develop all of our projects from early schematics through construction documents, VR technology is a natural extension of what we already do–all of our projects are developed using Graphisoft’s Archicad platform and are modeled in 3D from the start.  For this project, we did nothing more than convert our already fully developed 3D computer model to an easily read VR-friendly file format.