Name: Brainstorm Design 2023: Enhancing User Experience With Digital Twins
Uploaded: 2023-12-07
Duration: 20 min 56 s
Description: Jan Bunge, Director, Squint/Opera In conversation with: Tony Chambers, Studio TC & Friends

Jan Bunge, Director, Squint/Opera In conversation with: Tony Chambers, Studio TC & Friends

Brainstorm Design 2023: Enhancing User Experience With Digital Twins

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The success of any city or building design gets decided the moment people are in these spaces and experiencing them. For that reason, Jan Bunge and the team at Squint Opera are focusing on creating digital experience twins to enable their clients to test and measure the experience virtually before committing to building. Please welcome Jan Bonga. Me too. How's the jet lag? I don't know. Oh, good, foolishly came from New York squeezed in too much, but it's great to have you here. Thank you for joining us. Um Before we, we get in and ask you to share some examples of the recent projects that you have utilized the latest digital twinning technology, I would like you to tell us about the origins of Squint Opera and the influence of the Maverick architect will all stop. Tell us about Will and Squint Opera. So first of all, thank you very much for having me. Um Will also, in my view is maybe the most fearless and and, and you know, beautiful architect and because he had a very, very simple idea, he believed that work had to be enjoyable and he included the client in this occasion. So he would only work with clients who are actually fun and enjoyable to work with. So that was one of his uh mantras, one of his mantras and, and he was very strict with that and it's something that you see in other successful architects. Uh But often you find out that they actually have money in the background. So it's easy to have this attitude if you have a, a safety net and will, didn't, will, will went bankrupt six times uh because he, he, he left projects that he was not happy with. So I have the greatest respect for that. So he would walk away from a project if it wasn't. Exactly. Exactly. And, and so one of Will's sons had studied architecture and together with four of his friends, I thought maybe this, this is what comes out of uh you know, if you are, is this true to yourself? You know, he, he didn't build much, but the stuff that he didn't manage to realize is really exceptional. Um And, you know, we started Squint Opera 22 years ago. It was four friends who had studied architecture but didn't want to become architects. They liked the idea of filmmaking but never made a film. Um And it was Will also who said it was one of his sons was one of the founding members of the Squint Opera. And Will said, you know, you guys can have a bunch of tables here and we can make films together. Um And that was at a time when architecture communication was just really boring, fly throughs. Uh and, and uh together with will, you know, we were able to explore different narratives and, and we, we grant actually introduced the idea of uh you know, human stories and, and narrative in architectural communications. This is the film we did early on uh to a project of his called chips. Um And uh it was really, you know, at a time where anything you know, you would see was just, you know, really badly rendered, very boring, fly through. Um And, and it was that kind of experimental spirit and fearlessness really that, that created a whole new approach to, you know, how we communicate architecture. And this is, this is the build, the build project not too dissimilar to our MGMK here in terms of the, everything comes from somewhere, right? This is our stacked jewel boxes was we have stacked chips or French fries to our American friends. I joined the Squint Opera 12 years ago when it was this lovely little studio, 20 creative people. And I think the unique thing about this company was and is the fact that, you know, if you start not knowing what you want to do, then somehow everything is an opportunity and everything is interesting. So anything that came to us, we would always take on and, and people would come with many different things and we started many different businesses in over the last 20 years. Um Just because we were driven by curiosity and, you know, just wanting to explore stuff. So, so today, um we are actually part of a larger conglomerate where 300 people operating globally. And um we are creating anything you would possibly need to communicate complex ideas in the cultural sector or in entertainment, but also still in, in the environment, which is what I'm talking about today. Uh Our, our studio is producing anything from, you know, films to to images, to graphic design. We have a bunch of digital designers, software developers, you know, doing the interactive stuff. And maybe 67 years ago, we started to pivot our internal pipeline from a kind of linear rendering pipeline to a to a real time pipeline. And today, maybe most of our projects in some way uh at the core are, you know, linked to the creation of of complete virtual real time world. Um We, we're not just a consultancy service, we actually make everything uh in house that we, that we talk about and it's a very hands on kind of business. Um But you know, all the typical stuff you know, from, from graphic design, a lot of 3d animation, a lot of two D animation. In the end, we have to connect to people. So we film a lot in camera and you know, as much as we can, we, we, we treat our film projects as kind of set extensions where we, we, we have real life in the foreground and then the the future reality kind of happens in the, in the back. And then we are not usual in the architectural communication. It was, it was, I mean, when we started doing this 1518 years ago, no client was asking for it and there was no budget for it and, and we would basically absorb this extra cost of having actors and screens and all that and making no money. Um because we thought it really is, that's what's missing, you know, in, in this piece. Um And today we have a, you know, half of our business is, is very much in the kind of interactive immersive space. So we built a lot of spatial experiences which have a digital interactive layer, a lot in the cultural sector, explaining anything from the complexity of border wine to how the first World War started. I think generally speaking, you know, this is also one of the reasons why people, you know, come in love work with us that is every project is very different and different in medium and, and different in the in the topic. From commercial showrooms to, you know, a lot of cultural work. Um But our journey into real time technology started when we were asked to join the team of think design to reimagine the visitor experience at Empire State Building. And, and this is a project which spans all the way from the entrance to the observation decks over five floors. I think we had like almost 80 digital touch points. Um And it was really for, for our designers uh very difficult to understand what would work in this space. And so we, we, we started building everything in real time. This was gonna be 2016, 1516. Um really as a tool for us to understand what would work in in this space, what kind of content, what kind of screen size? Um And very early on one of the first client reviews we had we did in our studio and when the client saw how we are actually designing it, uh He insisted that from now onwards, every review would have to happen in real time and we actually went and installed headsets to decline pay for this. He did it. But this guy by now we have grown as a business and but yeah, but it it was a very complex uh uh project that really spans across everything that Quin does. Um you know, from the concept design for the digital experience to, you know, all the kind of details, you know, to the character animation and the um stage design and filming. And so yeah, it it's very um these complex projects, I think it's extremely useful to simulate even at the design stage for as an from an internal perspective. Um you know, those complex settings because it really helps us to figure out how we should um uh curate the whole experience. And then subsequently, it's actually a really good tool to get the clients sign off because they really understand what it is that they are getting in the end. Did you commission music? We were, we have a, we have a sister company. So we do all our sounds and music design in house and in this case, we were able to commission the soundtrack for this experience. Sound is extremely important. Uh We haven't talked about as much yet but here. But I think visually, we, we all have a different way of perceiving imagery but sound and music just goes in a bit more into your, you know, subconsciousness's much less of an abstract. Yeah, that's incredible. 360. Yeah. And today it's just really every project starts with us. This is Peak Tramway uh in Hong Kong where we start with building a very simple 3D model. Uh Everything is happening in build times. We're building everything in unreal many cases like here, we also create all the content uh in, in real time. Um And then the client gets to uh so, I mean, just one little note, maybe this was not possible, you know, 23 years ago, the visual quality uh was, was not at that level. Um just recently that we were able to create these, you know, visually uh high quality renderings. And then we simulate the audio visual experience uh for our designers and, and for the client and, and this is the, the, the the final thing. So you get very close to the actual experience um that, that you will have in the, in the space. So one way of looking at this is that we're taking the, the engineering twins, the, the, the 3D models, the rabbit models of the designers, and we translate them into something that a non technical person can understand. And so it's all about simulating the experience. Um Another moment when, when this became clear to us was a project, we had the pleasure of working on with uh uh uh Akio Toyota. Um the, the, the, at this point, the CEO he was the CEO of Toyota. Now the chairman um and they had commissioned a research compass to explore kind of future areas of interest that Toyota might grow into as a business in the future known as the Woven City. Yes, exactly. It's the Woven City project just under Mount Mount Fuji. And um when, when the architect, the del presented the first kind of draft concept design actually said, you know, I really like what I'm seeing, but I don't understand what what it actually is. You know, I, I never, I never commissioned a city, a city, you know, uh uh I, I need to be able to, to feel it. I need, I need a holo deck. What, what's his reference, right? And then, and then them being Toyota, I mean, that's what they, what they did, right? They, they, they created a um a virtual experience space for him and the board to, to kind of fully immerse themselves in the, in the review process. Um because that was the only way really for them to understand, you know, what it is that they are signing off on. Um and, and really, you know, give them a better, yeah, a better understanding of now, this one is the most up to date uh project. And when I first saw this film, I thought you were making a Hollywood movie uh has all those ingredients, but it's, it's for the Neon Project. So once, once you have this real time model, you can use it in multiple ways. And the, the other way that we're using those models is uh in, in uh film studios where, where we uh in virtual production studios where we use them as backdrops uh or this is for an exhibition uh in, in Venice where people were able to explore, you know, how it would feel like to, to be in the line. Um And, and I think that's the beautiful thing about the technology that you can use it in all these different ways. But you've been on that project from the very early days, the development of things. So we, and again, did the client request to have this real time visualization. So we started working with Neo the week, the current CEO was made CEO so seven years ago and um it's a very complex project and there's actually many, many different projects in, in, in a piece of land, the size of Belgium. Um And so the only way really for the, the client to review and, and understand, you know, what they're getting into is to experience these things in, in, in real time. So it's very much a requirement. And in that case, we are, we are just, you know, projecting it on massive led walls. But, you know, for me, the the the reason why we're doing all this really goes back to, to a very simple uh fact that, you know, we all are amazing spatial sensors. I mean, we all are conditioned to feel spatial qualities. You walk into a space, you walk into a lobby for the first time and you instantly have a feeling you, you, you either feel this is a great space or, or you don't like it, right? And in today's world, you also tell all your friends the moment that you're feeling it, how you feel. So, so it's really this moment um when the failure or the success of, of any project really, you know, it gets decided. And so our ability to to virtually test the experience and, and to virtually kind of optimize the the performance of those spaces is is crucial. And, and today we are optimizing these projects in a, you know, virtually from a kind of commercial performance perspective and environmental performance perspective and also the experiential performance uh you know, is, is kind of what we are trying to, to simulate and to optimize for in this early stage because it's actually much easier to change anything you want at this early stage, much more complicated once you have poured concrete and installed screen sizes. Um So, and then the other question is, is kind of, I think, why, why is this happening now? And, and, and the fact is that all this was not possible until very recently. And, and you know, I made this very elaborate graph where I think that, you know, you could argue that there's always some sort of technical innovation happening. Um and then people have ideas but it doesn't always match, you know, how technology evolves. Um And then thirdly, there is some sort of wider socio-economic context that is happening and we are at the very tip of this, uh you know, for the next 3 to 5 years, you know, we are really experiencing this moment in time where the convergence of advances in gaming technology, machine learning and robotic automation, you know, it is really completely changing the, the the way that, you know, we are, we are working. Uh I I actually, you think we're really in that hotspot now where the three are, I mean, it has happened. So So we are right in the middle of it. Um And, and I think it's, we're just, you know, starting to see how radical of a change this actually is. I think it's an absolute fundamental change and everything is changing in, in, in, in the industry and in, in the good environment, it's absolutely changing the way we design, procure, build and operate our buildings and cities. Um And, and, and yeah, we're just at the beginning of this journey, but it's, there's no way back. Um And then the, what's next, you know, what, what, what's coming, it's already, you know, here in, in parts, but it will just become more visible, you know, in the, in the near future. I think we are, we are at the beginning of a uh um a development where I always thought, you know, so I'm a trained landscape architect who went into urban design and I think it's fair to say that over the last decade, we kind of forced designers to become technicians, you know, we needed them to code, we needed them to learn complex, you know, we operate complex software. Um And then there are also project managers and they are this and that and the other. And at the end, there is very little time to actually design something. So the technology was not really helping us as no. And it was just eating our time, I think and, and uh what we're seeing now is is a kind of wave of ambient computing which is coming where um we basically have won all these um assistance that are, that are helping us in the, in the background and making our lives easier. Um And, and as we are designing, I think, even if you, you know, start scribbling on an ipad at a very early stage, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to see the impact uh of, of your idea at this moment on the, the supply chain or your carbon footprint or the budget or whatever other, you know, uh thing you are interested in. And, and that is really another complete game changer because that's something that's freeing up the designer. It's taking a lot of that burden. I think so and it also should lead us to better design because at the moment, these things are quite um removed and we have actually in, in the build environment, we actually have divided the process in two phases where first we hire an architect or a designer to come up with a dream and, you know, we sell a vision and get everyone excited and get investment and whatever. And then we halfway in, we give it to a contractor and then we tell them now build this thing and by the way, this is your budget and here's your timeline and, and, and have a look what the supply chain is doing, right? And, and so a lot of the times what's getting built, you know, doesn't very much resemble what was, you know, designed in the first place. So I think it can only help to have this information a bit earlier in the, in the process and, and the, the, the promise really is, I think that all of this will help us to focus on, you know, what we are actually best at, you know, in helping us to, to design again. Yeah, fantastic. So make designers design again. That's almost Trumpian in its implicity as a message. It is. Yeah, that is fantastic. A wonderful insight into the work you and squint opera do. But a great message at the end, designers are now techno freeing designers to make them design again. Thank you so much. Thank you and see you later.