Swapping video calls for VR will change our homes forever says Space Popular

This movie by Space Popular explores how virtual reality could become as widespread as the video call, allowing our homes to digitally merge with those of our loved ones.

Zoom meetings and FaceTime calls have become a major form of communication, as people around the world face the realties of life and work in coronavirus shutdown.

Space Popular founders Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg believe this technology will be superseded by the widespread adoption of VR.

Virtual reality will be a new form of communication, says Space Popular

The pair suggest that, as people start to communicate with friends and family in virtual reality, the physical spaces of their homes will overlap, shaping new hybrid spaces for them to inhabit together.

This proposal featured in The Venn Room, a virtual-reality installation that the two architectural designers created for the Tallinn Architecture Biennale in 2019.

When people come together in virtual reality, their physical environments overlap

The VR movie that featured in this installation was never intended to be seen outside of the installation.

But in light of the pandemic, Lesmes and Hellberg have produced a 2D version of it, which is making its premiere here on Dezeen.

New hybrid spaces are created for the two people to inhabit together

"The Covid-19 pandemic is the first major health crisis humans have experienced where live communication is possible," they told Dezeen. "The fact that we can see and hear bits of each other makes isolation perhaps a bit more bearable."

"This current situation, in all its awfulness, might serve as a moment to reconsider and experiment with the place that technology takes in our lives, opening our eyes to the threats it poses but also the opportunities it offers," they said.

If two people want to sit together, they have to move physical furniture to align

The film looks at what happens when two people wearing VR headsets occupy the same virtual space, but are located in different physical spaces.

When they come together, the physical spaces of their homes are inadvertently combined, just like a Venn diagram. The size, shape and layout of these spaces dictates where people can sit or stand. If two people want to sit together, for instance, they have to move physical furniture to align.

Users could choose how their physical spaces merge, to shape their new virtual spaces

This creates opportunities for people to actively and collectively create shared environments, as a form of augmented reality. It could lead to all kinds of new virtual spaces, for both work and play.

"As long as you choose to access virtual worlds from within the safety of your privately owned property, your physical home will inevitably become the skeleton upon which these worlds are built," said Lesmes and Hellberg.

Many of these virtual spaces could be created in one home

The Venn Room is one of several VR experiences that Space Popular has designed. The London-based studio is particularly interested in the impact this technology will have on architecture in the future.

With many people stuck at home, Lesmes and Hellberg hope this film will show them how virtual reality can offer greater possibilities for togetherness, while also giving people a renewed interest in their immediate surroundings.

The project featured as a VR installation at the Tallinn Architecture Biennale in 2019

"Virtual togetherness and remote communication is an ongoing project which is both technological and cultural," they added.

"It has only been 150 years since the telephone was invented and, since then, we have never stopped our efforts to transfer as much of us as possible and with ever greater fidelity at every step."

"We have the chance to choose how to use and manage that technology and how to make it part of our lives."

Space Popular is a design studio founded by Lesmes and Hellberg in in 2013 in Bangkok, where for five years they taught architecture. Other recently completed projects by the firm include Brick Vault House in Valencia, a video installation at the gate of a historic palace in Seoul, and an installation that charts the past 500 years of architectural history at RIBA.

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Architect and medics collaborate on "unprecedented" project to develop open-source hoods to protect healthcare workers

Boston architect Eric Höweler has helped local doctors develop patient isolation hoods – a new type of device that could save the lives of healthcare workers and "impact things worldwide" in the fight against coronavirus.

Made from a single sheet of folded plastic, the patient isolation hood has been developed from a standing start in just nine days and will be trialled at Massachusetts General Hospital from Tuesday.

The transparent, dome-like patient isolation hood (PIH) fits over a patient's head and shoulders, protecting hospital staff from virions, or virus particles, that are breathed or coughed out by people with coronavirus.

"The patient isolation hood is somewhere between a wearable and an architectural scale," Höweler told Dezeen. "It's like a small house that is placed over a patient's body during a risky procedure."

The patient isolation hood fits over a patient's head and shoulders

Doctors are particularly at risk during intubation, a procedure that involves inserting a tube into the airway in preparation for ventilation.

"If the patient is coughing, there can be a lot of aerosolized droplets that are spread, making the procedure risky," he added. A clear plastic shield around the patient can help control those aeroslized droplets."

The hood protects medical staff from infection while performing intubation

The hood has been developed at breakneck speed by a group of doctors, engineers and designers meeting in a series of Zoom calls and Slack discussions.

"This is an open-source call that brings together designers from all over the world and is being prototyped in an extremely accelerated timeframe," said Höweler, a partner at Boston architect Höweler + Yoon Architecture.

The device was developed in just nine days by a team including Eric Höweler

"The speed and level of collaboration is unprecedented," he added. "About nine days before a first review at the hospital and hopefully 14 days for deployment. "

"This project sprung out of the previous efforts with PPE," added Höweler, who has helped develop open-source face shields for healthcare workers.

"We were wondering what else we could do, and the individual efforts of thousands of makers 3D-printing masks seemed to be overtaken by the onlining of companies with much larger volume capacities."

Testing the hood

"We heard about intubation boxes or patient isolation hoods also being in high demand," he added. "The idea is to partially enclose a patient while a doctor performs an intubation procedure, which is to put a tube down the patient's throat."

"We sketched up some templates for a CNC and asked a plastics fabricator that we'd worked with before to cut and assemble a prototype," Höweler explained.

"We then asked around to see if there were local hospitals that were in need."

Model of the hood, which is made from a single piece of folded plastic

The idea for the hoods simultaneously emerged two weeks ago at Massachusetts General Hospital, where a Covid-19 innovations team co-led by Dr Sam Smith started to research better ways of protecting healthcare workers treating coronavirus patients.

"We felt strongly that there was some opportunity to better look at protecting physicians," Smith told Dezeen.

"In some countries, like in areas of Spain, it was one in eight getting infected while working with Covid patients."

Early development sketch and model of the patient isolation hood

Dr Wong, a physician at the hospital, came up with the idea of making lightweight hoods that could be placed over patients.

"I just said, hey, this is fantastic because it basically covers the patient who is breathing out all this, you know, aerosolized virus," Smith said. "And he makes a couple little slits in the back, puts his hands through, and he can do all the things he needs to do with better protection."

Engineers developed a prototype but "there was nobody on the design side, giving input to this, not even on the ergonomics," said Smith.

The hoods will be tested with patients at Massachusetts General Hospital from Tuesday

Smith made contact with Höweler via the innovation team's Slack channel, and the collaboration began.

Höweler and his team "immediately then started to have the input that I needed," Smith said.

"The success of this will be because the design is exceptional," Smith added. "Not only because it is simpler than we imagined, but is also more functional as a result."

The design "certainly could impact things worldwide" in the fight against coronavirus, Smith said, saving the lives of both healthcare professionals and patients, since the negative pressure inside the hood reduces the need to put patients on ventilators.

"We've actually started to find that you can get by without putting breathing tubes and putting them on a ventilator, and you're probably gonna cause less lung injury because of it," Smith said. "People may do better."

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Daily coronavirus architecture and design briefing: 20 April

Daily coronavirus briefing: today's architecture and design coronavirus briefing includes the conversion of a Foster + Partners-designed college building, open-source hoods and optimism from Spain.

Spanish design brands "optimistic" as factories reopen after lockdown

Manufacturers in Spain are reopening their factories after two weeks in total lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus, with brands to promising to "bounce back" (via Dezeen).

Foster + Partners' Cleveland Clinic medical school becomes coronavirus hospital

The Foster + Partners-designed Samson Pavilion at the Cleveland Clinic medical school has been converted into a Covid-19 hospital that could house up to 1,000 patients. A picture posted by Norman Foster on Instagram shows the building's 25-foot-high central Delos M Cosgrove courtyard fitted out with beds divided by scaffolding pole enclosures.

"An almost instant conversion of our Cleveland Clinic medical school into a Covid-19 hospital," wrote Foster (via Norman Foster on Instagram).

Architect and medics collaborate on "unprecedented" project to develop open-source hoods to protect healthcare workers

Boston architect Eric Höweler has helped local doctors develop patient isolation hoods – a new type of device that could save the lives of healthcare workers and "impact things worldwide" in the fight against coronavirus (via Dezeen).

Dutch scientists publish post-coronavirus degrowth manifesto

A group of 170 scientists in the Netherlands have put together a manifesto calling on politicians adopt a degrowth strategy for a "radically more sustainable" approach to take advantage of the systematic disruption caused by Covid-19 (via Trouw).

Fabio Novembre calls for architects and designers to help create a new world order after coronavirus

Designer Fabio Novembre questions the desire to return to normal after the coronavirus pandemic, claiming that "the virus is in the system we used to live in", in a video message recorded for Virtual Design Festival. (via Dezeen).

Augmented-reality exhibition launched to sell artwork during pandemic

Designer Sebastian Errazuriz has created an online exhibition that allows collectors to preview artworks in their home using augmented reality tools during the coronavirus pandemic (via Dezeen).

Plane delivering medical equipment to Iceland draws giant heart

An Icelandair aircraft carrying medical supplied from China to Iceland has used its flight path to create a heart-shape above the country (via FlightRadar24).

Danielle Elsener creates open-source pattern for scrubs

Designer Danielle Elsener has created a zero-waste pattern for scrubs that can be used to make the protective clothing as global supplies dwindle (via Danielle Elsener).

Keep up with developments by following Dezeen's coverage of the coronavirus outbreak. For news of impacted events, check Dezeen Events Guide's dedicated coronavirus page.

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Blending fiction and reality, Julie Poly’s new series presents the colourful characters of the Ukrainian railway

Inspired by her job working as a conductor, the Kiev-based photographer rode the Eastern and Western trains for a total of three years for the project.

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Laugh out loud with Ollie Hudson’s blobby characters and smug-looking bees

The Bournemouth-based illustrator didn’t always value drawing as much as he does now. Here, he talks us through his playful practice.

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