3D Scanning and the Architectural Imagination: Exploring the Tactility, Materiality, and Collective Use of Virtual Models

Matadero Modelo: Guaminí Slaughterhouse, Image: Bika Rebek

By Bika Rebek

Bika Rebek is the Principal of Some Place Studio, a design studio that focuses on architecture and exhibition projects, with locations in New York City and Vienna. Read her feature interview, and spend a day in NYC with Bika as well.

It all started in Rome. I was visiting the eternal city a decade ago and had just downloaded a new app called 123D Catch on my phone. Ever excited about trying new technologies I started taking photos of a carved stone fountain in the middle of a small piazza and to my astonishment the software produced a perfectly textured 3D model I could look at and upload right then and there. I was able to replicate this little miracle by scanning friends and various objects that are now buried in an inaccessible virtual junkyard since Autodesk decided to nix 123D Catch. The fascination with virtual replicas is still intact however and has led to an in depth investigation about its possibilities and meaning since then.

Within the architectural industry 3D Scanning is considered a distinctly technical rather than artistic topic, advertised as a way to measure sites or track building progress. Looking at the history of emerging technologies this is unsurprising - photography, for example, was long seen as a craft and purely technical process rather than an art form. While the recognition of 3D Scanning as an art form is still distant, there are already certain signature styles by individual artists, companies or even amateurs starting to shape the field creatively. Following are three examples taken from recent collaborations and then a discussion of relevant current artistic and preservation practices pushing the aesthetic and conceptual boundaries of replicas, copying and facsimiles.

The Fidi Arsenale: 3d Gameplay View. Image: Bika Rebek

Exhibition Replicas

3D scanned objects can be extremely useful for the planning of an exhibition where figuring out exact dimensions of objects is a crucial aspect of the design. During and after an exhibition, the assets can be used for interactive maps or to create virtual content twinning reality. Once an exhibition closes, the 3D scanned space and/or artifacts can be converted into a digital archive allowing spatial qualities and adjacencies between artworks to be preserved. In early 2020 a large show called Fidi Arsenale that I co-curated with Matt Shaw and Collin Clarke opened in an abandoned pub in the financial district of New York City. The exhibition was concerned with new virtual territories and precarious IRL spaces where people are carving out and enacting their own visions and communities. To document the show with its varied physical and virtual artifacts, we 3D scanned the space with students from my Columbia GSAPP seminar Tools for Show and created a virtual replica of the space that now lives online as a walkable, game-like environment. The scan had to be entirely rebuilt and cleaned up to enable the web upload and materiality was removed to create more focus on the works. The aim here is not so much a replication of the exact experience but rather a digital reinterpretation.

The Virtual Travel Sketchbook

As I learned in that formative experience in Rome, Photogrammetry can be done with a regular phone or camera while traveling. It can be a way to document an object of interest and to use it later as an asset or even just for personal reference. While we are very much used to document experiences and moments through photo and video, 3D scanning (literally) adds another dimension.

One such project was the documentation of a number of Mataderos (slaughterhouses) in the wide open pampas of Argentina which led to the virtual exhibition titled Matadero Modelo. Created in collaboration with the scholar and writer Valeria Meiller as part of her academic research the project was later developed into an interactive website where the full 3D scans of these buildings can now be seen. The scenes are set on a white background, creating a disembodied, sculptural impression of the structures. The only edit besides geometrical clean-up and corrections is the addition of floor plans for each of the structures. One of the scans combines an exterior and interior scan that were recorded separately but fit seamlessly into each other. Just like traditional sketches would reflect the tastes and drawing styles of the author, 3D scans can have a certain signature style and treatment.

Building Imaginary Worlds

Social Web VR platforms like Mozilla Hubs enable real time collaboration within 3D environments. The past year with lockdowns and inability to travel has seen an explosion in creativity and readiness to work with these formats amongst event organizers and universities. Elements such as sound, media, sky and avatar design turn these scenes into immersive environments that can then be used as virtual meeting or event spaces. With scale being quickly adjusted, these spaces can be used for scaled or 1:1 mockups for architects and their clients to look at models or full scale interiors and even streetscapes. A recent example was created in collaboration with Leah Wulfman and Stephanie Lin for the School of Architecture founded by Frank Lloyd Wright in Arcosanti, Arizona. The project was conceived as a virtual end of year show presenting six thesis projects. Five of these projects took the form of 1:1 physical on-site shelters that were included in the VR environment as 3D Scans. They were embedded within a world referencing elements of the desert landscape such as cacti and petroglyph avatars. The projects were presented in multiple stages of construction, allowing for a collapsing of different timelines within a single experience.

Shelter World, Image: Leah Wulfman, The School of Architecture

Through these projects and teaching a specialized Visual Studies Seminar revolving around topics of 3D scanning, I found allies and inspiration in fields adjacent to architecture - preservationists and artists that have long been working with 3D scanning and replication, building custom tools and workflows and cultivating a discourse around it.

Prominently, Factum Arte is a company “dedicated to digital mediation” and “specializing in production of facsimiles” with large workshops in Madrid and London. They have built their own custom 3D scanners and 3D printers and are working on projects of various sizes, from reconstructing fine layers of paint to the rebuilding of entire ships. The founder Adam Lowe is on the faculty at Columbia GSAPP and co-wrote an article titled “The Migration of the Aura – or How to Explore the Original Through Its Facsimiles” with the anthropologist Bruno Latour calling for a re-evaluation of facsimiles as artworks in themselves. The article is trying to turn the western value judgement of valuing an original over a copy upside down, by arguing for the value and qualities of copying: “Let us remember that the word "copy" does not need to be so derogatory, since it comes from the same etymology as "copious," and thus designates a source of abundance. There is nothing inferior in the notion of a copy, simply a proof of fecundity.” Importantly, in their view the value of a copy is derived from the quality of the physical copy. Virtual copies are only intermediary steps whose only purpose is to refine and therefore valorize the physical copy rather than being precious in themselves.

A younger generation of artists working is interested in aspects of 3D scanning as an aesthetic medium and a way to question the role of copying in contemporary culture. Oliver Laric has built his practice around 3D scanning historic sculptures from museum collections and then putting them online for anyone to download for free and without any copyright limitations attached. In his lectures he spends most of his time showing the expansive documentation of projects that have utilized his 3D Scans, ranging from music videos to miniature 3D prints. At first glance the practice might introduce a new level of passivity into art as it is simply about reproducing a virtual copy and then distributing it as widely as possible. Yet also here there are a number of aesthetic decisions at play - looking at his website all the works are displayed without context, without texture and without any photo or reference to the original object. They are presented in a disembodied grid, much like stock images or other content on the web that is removed from context, creating a seductive environment for anyone to use these models for their own purpose. Laric also uses the 3D Scans to create his own physical sculptures which are often exact replicas in form but modify the material and transparency properties of the original work. Some of his sculptures are produced as sets of triplets or more, emphasizing their origins as replicas.

The artist Claire Hentschker has an entirely different approach using similar techniques. Her project Merch Mulch is based on a compilation of found video footage of abandoned malls scraped of YouTube that was run through photogrammetry software to create 360 videos. Since the footage was not expressly created for 3D scanning the results are often messy, creating frayed meshes and intersecting textures. The mesh errors of the scan are used here to emphasize a sense of eerienes and abandonment in line with the subject matter. Her work with 3D scanning is exploring the aesthetic qualities of the format by pushing the technology to its limits in a way it was not originally intended. Further, Hentschkers work points to the larger idea that any piece of footage showing a space from different angles could be used to reconstruct an ever so imperfect replica.

Within architecture, 3D scanning is still very niche at the moment - there are few practitioners outside of large corporate firms who use it and it is not included in regular curricula within schools and universities. Yet there are some indicators that this is about to change - within the last couple of years 3D scanning has become accessible as a low budget tool that can be used by anyone with a smartphone and the technology is continuously improving. Combined with the push accelerated by the global pandemic to work remotely, 3D scanning could help in executing projects from off-site. In particular when combined with 3D web applications such as Sketchfab or Mozilla Hubs it allows for new forms of creation and collaboration within 3D spaces live on a web browser. Here, accessibility plays an important role -while web VR has been around for a while these new platforms allow amateurs and enthusiasts to build and upload entire worlds and scenes to be shared with people around the world. The virtual copy here is not necessarily a step towards a physical reproduction but an artistic work in its own right.

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1 - https://www.factum-arte.com/aboutus

2 - Bruno Latour, Adam Lowe. The Migration of the Aura Exploring the Original Through Its Fac similes. Thoma Bartscherer; Roderick Coover. Switching Codes Thinking Through Digital Technology in the Humanities and the Arts, University of Chicago Press, pp.275 - 297, 2011