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AR-Apt: architectural participatory design of buildings in augmented reality

Tzortzi Maria-Eleni

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Summary

This thesis presents the development of AR-Apt, an Augmented Reality (AR) application designed to facilitate architectural design and participatory planning of apartments and buildings. The application enables real-time collaboration between expert users, such as architects, and non-expert users, including future residents, allowing them to contribute to the design process. By utilizing Microsoft HoloLens 2, the system provides an interactive and immersive design experience, where users can visualize, customize, and refine building structures collaboratively. The AR-Apt system follows a three-phase design process: (1) defining the abstract structure, where architects establish the initial framework of the building; (2) user participation in spatial design, enabling civilians to modify and organize living modules in an augmented environment; and (3) customization and finalization, allowing users to refine individual layouts and facades to enhance personalization. A visualization interface is implemented to offer scaled-down model views, improving comprehension and interaction. The Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK3) and Unity Engine were chosen for system development, ensuring seamless interaction, user friendly controls, and a scalable platform for future enhancements. The implementation of AR-Apt was built using the Unity Engine, leveraging its robust real-time rendering capabilities and seamless integration with AR technologies.The Mixed Reality Toolkit (MRTK3) was employed to facilitate user interactions, including hand gestures, eye tracking, and spatial mapping, ensuring an intuitive user experience. The system architecture utilizes Unity’s Netcode for GameObjects for real-time synchronization between multiple users, enabling seamless collaborative interactions in a shared AR space.Additionally, Unity’s Relay and Lobby services were integrated to establish reliable multiplayer networking, allowing users to create and join design sessions without complex network configurations. For data persistence and retrieval, Unity CloudSave was utilized, ensuring that user modifications and design iterations could be stored and accessed across sessions. The application’s interface was developed with MRTK’s UI components, providing a volumetric and adaptable interface for immersive user interaction. The application also implements custom-built scripts for scene management, user authentication, and real-time modification of architectural models. By combining these tools and frameworks, AR-Apt delivers a high-fidelity, scalable, and efficient AR experience tailored for collaborative architectural design.A user evaluation was conducted to assess usability, interaction techniques, and collaboration efficiency. The results indicate that AR-Apt successfully enhances participatory planning by bridging the gap between architectural professionals and nonexpert users, fostering a more inclusive and democratic approach to urban development. Future work will explore real-scale walkthroughs, advanced customization options, and improved real-time collaboration features to further enhance user experience and architectural engagement.

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