iWEB and Protospace

an initiative of Prof. Kas Oosterhuis, Hyperbody, TU Delft

What is it and why do we need it?

How to get involved?

How does it work?

What has been achieved to date?

Applied principles
 Your clients are worried about the environment?

You can´t change the weather, but you can meet its
impact and improve the situation by considering the right
aspects from the very beginning with a team of experts in
a collaborative design session.

With this folder we want to invite you, to team up with Hyperbody and to
make use of our revolutionary novel design approach Protospace.
Collaborative Design and Engineering in Real-Time,
using iWEB and Protospace

What is it and why do we need it?

What is Collaborative Design about?

Collaborative Design in Real-Time means: “It is a well known fact that the biggest influence on the cost/quality ratio of a building exist at
Architecture could be so easy. You take a pen, draw a square with a roof on top and you are done. No complex the very start of the project.” [HH2008]
technical drawings, simple materials and the client is content. collaboration of experts and stakeholders real-time from any place, in the iWEB or both
Fortunately those times have changed. Starting from extraordinary client wishes the architect has to build up a team social and informational interaction in real-time from any place
of experts to construct a building that is not only aesthetically satisfying but is also fulfilling the current and future ambient, personal interaction in real-time in iWEB
standards of building performance and economical and environmental demands. rapid exploration of design alternatives by immediate, interdisciplinary cross-check
These experts are scattered around the world, following their tight schedules, jet setting from city to city. To bring the enabling ad-hoc solutions for unpredictable situations during design
team together around the Arthurian round table seems an impossible task.
Protospace is designed to make it possible, and to enable the expert to join the table wherever he is on the world and building bridges between different systems and approaches
whatever the time difference may be.
And on top of that it will not only conquer the intercontinental time delay but also the postponement in the design There is a need for Collaborative Design in Real-Time to:
process that derives from sending drawings back and forth waiting for feedback and adjustments. In real-time the
expert’s tools are connected with special software, so that it is possible to see the impact of changes of one of the improve the cost/quality ratio of any built environment
other team members in their discipline immediately in the own one. improve the efficiency of the design process
In such creative sessions milestone questions can be answered, and problems be resolved. speed-up design and development processes
In this way both design and production process will become more efficient and result in lower time and budget need. speed-up information and data exchange
With Protospace architecture can be easy again. Not simple, definitely not standard, but out of one fluent process. increases the availability of high-quality time
Several pens, but one drawing – probably a masterpiece of an extraordinary building. frees time to work on the contents by decreasing efforts on repetitive tasks
enables fast-track Building Information Modeling (BIM)
And what is Protospace? share knowledge and expertise - improve communication to improve design quality
enhance the innovation competence of design teams
Protospace is a project initiated by Prof. Kas Oosterhuis and Hyperbody, his chair at the Delft University of Technology. develop complex design tasks, such as
Potential cost saving (Love 1998)
It is a real-time design environment, in which the idea of collaborative design is implemented. sustainable architecture
non-standard architecture,
The primary aim is to intensify the professional dialogue between different experts in a project team and to bring the interactive architecture,
design process to a new level of complexity and performance. file-to-factory processes,
This dialogue will not only result in a coherent design process but will additionally help to bring forth decisions that will complex geometries,
have great impact on the cost-quality ratio of the whole project. optimization procedures
iWEB and Protospace iWEB and Protospace

How to get involved? How does it work?

After one year of experiments Protospace invites third parties, clients from the public and private sector, to join in one and the
same complex but fluid design game.

Protospace offers two modes:

a. Protospace as Operational Mode or Approach

building bridges between different systems and approaches

> any place

quick solutions
realizable concepts
independent of given technological solutions
ad-hoc solutions for unpredictable situations, which arise during design

This mode strongly relies on the Protospace team, which is integrated with the (external) design team.
The team is backed by technological solutions as elements of the process.
These solutions are either already provided by Hyperbody or can be quickly developed - for immediate use - by our team of
experts.
b. Protospace as Ambience or Physical protospace
building bridges between different systems and approaches
> in iWEB
an augmented reality group design room, enabling
ambient, direct communication between team partners,
enhancing the “Operational Mode”, when/where necessary
The group design room in the interior of the iWEB physically is a 360 degrees projection screen around a playing field. The
Protospace playground is filled with an array of sensors and tracking devices to establish a fine-grained high-resolution and
above all emotional communication between the players [experts and stakeholders] and the design worlds in progress.
This mode is an add-on to the Operational Mode, described above. The technical equipment is backed by interface solutions,
which are either already provided by Hyperbody or can be quickly developed - for immediate use - by our team of experts.
Protospace is a ‘Collaborative Design and Engineering in Real-Time’ design environment:
It is provided by Hyperbody.
Advanced CAD methods meet immersive VR visualization and multimodal user-interface technology.
It enables real-time interactive collaborative engineering in digital 3D environments.
Protospace supports and stimulates collaborative design and engineering in real-time:
Communication is processed in a game program, which is naturally played in real-time.
The design task can be a building, a detail of a building, a neighborhood of a city, a bridge, a large infrastructural planning task.
Design methods can be e.g. parametric design. It can be applied to conceptual studies, file-to-factory processes or to realize
interactive architecture.
Protospace is an open source design studio for Rapid Protospacing:
Enabling the making of fast and informative prototypes for organizational diagrams, spatial designs, planning schemes and project
development concepts.
Developments Protospace techniques

What has been achieved to date? Applied principles

Swarm Behavior:

The Protospace environment is based on the principles of Swarm Behavior. Swarm Behavior is applied to all objects
and players in the collaborative design game. Swarm Behavior forms the dynamic basis for all communication between
people and objects in the interactive design worlds. Swarm Behavior proves to be very advantageous for the quality and
affectivity of the collaborative design task. Managers, architects, urban planners and project developers will all benefit
from the improved communication between the designers and with the design objects.

Working in Protospace means working in

Within the last year several projects and tools have been developed_
an augmented reality environment, where
a. projects changes in the design are calculated and evaluated in real time.
It allows to explore alternatives in their own disciplinary field immediately, and
COLLADIVIR it immediately informs the other players on the validity of their alternatives.
751 Multiplayer Design Studio
Digital Pavilion Interface:
CDE Cooperative Design Engineering
E-Motive House The players are given
Central Station the most natural ways to communicate with the design game:
Virtual Operation Room
Muscle projects handheld wireless devices,
speech recognition,
more info attached hand movements or
simply moving around in the playing field.
b. tools
Rapid Protospacing:
Xi-Graph
several Virtools scripts Working in the collaborative design environment of Protospace enhances the sensitivity of the players to each others
real-time dxf-export tools (developed for MSc3 08) points of view. While designing in real time, the players will open up their sources of knowledge to the others.
Matrixframe exchange (BSc assignment 03)
phidgets BBs (Muscle projects) Rapid Protospacing means the making of fast and informative prototypes for organizational diagrams, spatial designs,
several interfaces (Floating City) planning schemes and project development concepts.

more info attached Working in Protospace means augmented insight within a condensed timeframe.
 Contact information

Address: P.O. box 5043, 2600 GA Delft

Telephone: +31 (0)639251338
Fax: +31 (0)15 27 81028
E-mail: Hyperbody@bk.tudelft.nl
Website: www.hyperbody.bk.tudelft.nl

Project Director: Prof Kas Oosterhuis MSc

Project Coordinator: Nora Schueler MSc
Telephone: +31 (0)643579407
E-mail: N.L.Schueler@tudelft.nl