By Erik Karasyk, HUSH
At HUSH, we specialize in crafting innovative experiences that blend the physical and digital worlds, engaging audiences in unexpected ways. As part of our work, we are frequently required to present our ideas and designs for large-scale sculptural installations and immersive spatial experiences.
In order to gain approvals from our clients and push projects forward, demonstrating our vision for activating physical spaces in an accurate and impactful way is critical. There are few better moments than a client enthusiastically shouting, “Holy shit, this is great!” to ensure a project's success, and the more we’re able to wow a client with our ideas, the easier our lives become.
The Challenge: Traditional Design Processes Fall Short
For decades, the design industry has relied on 2D representations like drawings, renderings, and fly-through animations, as well as 3D scale models. These tools are useful for communicating basic concepts but often fail to capture the true essence of an experience. And experience is ultimately what we’re providing.
How can you fully explain the feeling of awe you get standing beneath a beautiful soaring sculpture? Words and pictures simply can't do it justice. This gap between concept and reality can often lead to misunderstandings and misaligned expectations between designers and clients, costly and time-consuming revisions as the project evolves, and a disconnect between the initial excitement of an idea and the final execution.
The traditional tools for presenting concepts can also be unsustainable and incredibly wasteful. The use of complex renderings, and multiple physical prototypes and mockups—not to mention fabrication materials and electronic waste—can create a significant environmental impact.
The Solution: HUSH Embraces Mixed Reality
The technologies of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality are evolving quickly, and it’s been thrilling to see a wave of new products rapidly incorporating powerful on-device rendering and AI capabilities. Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses don't even have a screen, yet they take a bold step into augmenting our experience of environments with the help of AI seeing and hearing as we do.
We’ve found that augmented reality tools focused on collaboration have been particularly helpful to HUSH as a studio.
While Apple has been busy creating powerful AR development frameworks that will work natively and seamlessly across the web, the Magic Leap headset is a uniquely useful and fully functional solution for us. By enabling our teams to create immersive 1:1 scale representations of our vision, and collaborate in real-time with our clients regardless of their location, we open up the ability to experience the feeling of entering an amazing space together—as if the space was actually built.
Of the many xR devices currently on the market, the collaboration-first focus of the Magic Leap has enabled us to facilitate real-time reviews, both in-person and remotely, allowing for rapid discussion and iteration. We can reconfigure elements of a design on the fly and pass around virtual objects with each other. Invaluable insights have been captured as teams experiment with different perspectives, and receiving immediate feedback from stakeholders has kept them energized and engaged like never before. This has transformed our way of working and, more importantly, how we can deliver value to our clients.
The Benefits: Reimagining the Design Process
There’s a growing array of new tools for collaboration, many competing over premium pixels, optics, responsiveness, or comfort. These are all exciting innovations, but they distract from the core value of truly improving collaboration. There will be a flurry of new and powerful devices in the near future, and if there’s no argument in the unique ability of AR to create a powerful shared experience, then it becomes our job to bring the designers, clients, and stakeholders to the (virtual?) table. The tools allowing us to work better together will succeed as they become the more enjoyable path forward, yielding better results—and, just maybe, fewer eye rolls when using headsets. One can dream.
For HUSH, this collaboration leads to an understanding that enhances alignment between our teams, reduces miscommunication, and streamlines decision-making. AR, in particular, allows us to iterate on design faster, provides flexibility that breaks down barriers between initial sketching and form-making ideation, and enables us to move quickly into advanced design and execution.
In turn, we can more rapidly explore ideas and how they feel in real 3D environments by testing concepts in real-world contexts, and make informed decisions together, faster. Not only does this new agility help us create more refined designs, it is simply a more efficient and joyful process of creation.
When our clients can experience this design process firsthand, they become more confident and more invested in their projects. When they're able to see our vision literally come to life before their eyes, if even virtually, they are much more likely to accelerate the cycle of approvals, and ultimately make better-informed decisions that positively affect the project overall.
Plus, without the need for physical prototypes, material waste is minimized—helping both HUSH and our clients to have a meaningful impact on sustainability.
The Case Study: AR Helix
Our work on the Helix project for DevCo perfectly illustrates the power of AR in action for both design and client collaboration.
The site, a multi-building life sciences campus in New Jersey, presented complex design challenges, particularly in terms of scale, perspective, and the integration of dynamic digital elements. We designed a giant red ribbon-like sculpture that loops over and around the forecourt, as well as an interactive screen that threads through the lobby and responds to movement and activations in the building—both elements that were tricky to visualize and explain with traditional tools.
Using the Magic Leap Workshop tools, we were able to walk our clients through the proposed designs for the site at a 1:1 scale, giving them a visceral understanding of the spatial relationships and the overall impact of the design. We experimented with different configurations of the large sculptural forms, iterating and refining the design in real-time along with our clients’ feedback. We were also able to demonstrate the visual impact and legibility of digital displays and dynamic typography that will be embedded in the lobby floor, ensuring that the design meets accessibility requirements and delivers on the promise of a powerful and positive user experience.
The results were remarkable. Through the use of AR, client decisions that typically would have taken weeks or months were made on the spot. The clients were so confident with the AR experience that they approved budgets for additional innovative design elements throughout the rest of the building. And we were happy to have drastically reduced the need for costly and environmentally wasteful physical mockups.
The future of mixed reality is about shared experiences, removing layers of distraction with collaborative and sustainable tools. This technology marks the start of a fundamental shift in the way we approach design. The new tools are empowering us in a more experiential, collaborative, and sustainable way, and AR is unlocking new possibilities and helping our teams deliver greater value to our clients.
At HUSH, we believe these new tools are more than just a cool new trick. We’re excited to be pushing boundaries with technology, but the real prize has been empowering ourselves and our clients to create more meaningful, impactful experiences.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Erik Karasyk, an artist, technologist, and founding partner at HUSH, designs spaces that foster connection and exploration. Collaborating with innovative brands, HUSH crafts functional, meaningful environments. A lifelong scuba diver, Erik’s passion for nature fuels his commitment to sustainable design.