Luke Harris | One Melbourne Quarter from UAP Company on Vimeo.

Leading architecture studio, Woods Bagot, has delivered a striking homage to fishing in the foyer of their new mixed-use development, One Melbourne Quarter. Fishing nets are a powerful cultural motif in Australia, particularly for First Nations people. The Canopy references indigenous net making and acknowledges an important connection to the traditional owners of the Yarra River – the Bunurong Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation. The result, a striking stainless-steel installation, delivered by Urban Art Projects (UAP) using Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).

The Canopy insitu at One Melbourne Quarter
The Canopy Design

The Canopy is a graceful sculpture composed of two floating elements: a sizeable piece made of steel poised atop the main vestibule of the busy commercial tower; and, a sleek, smaller form, placed above the building’s indoor café and bar. Award-winning property developers Lendlease Australia invited UAP to operate as manufacturing partners, working closely with Woods Bagot in decrypting this complex architectural vision and fabrication workflow.

UAP team member marking the exact position of the rods with HoloLens
AR & VR Solutions

To the untrained eye, the sleek design of The Canopy appears to be a simple and clean ring of steel. However, Woods Bagot’s design was beautifully complex, incorporating an array of compound curves. This challenge was addressed by a team of craft makers, designers, and roboticists from across Design Robotics and UAP. This was the first project in which the team employed the use of AR and VR, specifically HoloLens headsets, and Fologram mixed reality software.
Ordinarily, documentation and fabrication processes are exacting and time-consuming – requiring high-levels of accuracy and efficiency, alongside many drawings. In contrast, HoloLens and Fologram governed the exact placement of each piece, including the drill holes. Fologram is unique in that it allows users to directly engage with making across the physical/digital divide. This technology enabled the team to move freely, whilst skillfully navigating and visualizing each point exactly, via a direct overlay of digital elements.

New Ways of Seeing

For Design Robotics, UAP, and Woods Bagot the entire process proved to be an exciting exploration into new ways of seeing. The application of AR and VR transported the time-consuming documentation process off the paper and onto the workshop floor. According to UAP’s experienced technical designer, Luke:
“Traditionally we’d measure and mark these points using a series of workshop drawings. The advantage of this headset is we don’t need to create this time-consuming document. The headset does away with this process entirely. The ability to see virtually what you are making has huge benefits, and this technology will only get better and easier to use.”
Luke also explained how it took roughly 6 hours to identify and directly mark out each connection point for the 450 rods. Normally, without the benefit of Fologram and HoloLens, this would have involved a lengthy back-and-forth process, taking approximately 3 days to complete. This left time for the same technology to be used in assessing aesthetic quality, which involved an organized system of iterative design changes and improvements throughout fabrication.

The view from inside the HoloLens

All those involved in the project were positive about their user experience and the outcome. For those directly involved in fabrication, incorporating advanced manufacturing technologies offered greater control and resulted in a heightened-level of calibrated precision.

UAP's team refining The Canopy
The Future of Manufacturing

This project heralds a long-term commitment to the use of AR and VR in the design and fabrication workflows. Through the Innovative Manufacturing Cooperative Research Centre (IMCRC), Design Robotics and UAP are collaborating to present a range of new possibilities. The goal is simple – to design for human intelligence and optimize the relationship between people and machines.
Making headway in the design process and pushing the boundaries in industrial robotics is a move to empower people. Navigating the increasing complexity of manufacturing inevitably supports human experience and enhances skills acquisition. At its heart, this approach celebrates the best of what robots and machines can achieve – problem-solving, and the best of what humans can do – social intelligence and contextual understanding.
It is important to both Design Robotics and UAP that every artist is an integral partner in technological experimentation, in order to inform creative concepts, design thinking, and enhanced workflows. In turn, this enables UAP’s craft makers to fulfill their creative potential resulting in dedicated skills acquisition. Ultimately, AR and VR are not used to initiate a race between robots and humans, but instead, they foster a relay in which the baton is passed from one to the other until the finish line is in sight.