The last half century has taken the architectural profession from hand-sketching to computer-aided design (CAD), transforming the process of drawing itself. But in recent years, this gradual evolution has accelerated, with virtual and augmented reality offering new and exciting possibilities for every stage of the design process.
Lorena Knezevic, a designer in our Miami studio, has closely followed this progression. Her interest in the relationship between design and technology began while she was a student at the University of Miami, where she completed a thesis titled “The Architecture of Augmented Reality.”
When she joined Perkins&Will two years ago, Lorena was hungry to learn about the array of tools available to designers. Through her exploration, she reimagined our existing methods. “As designers, we take the three-dimensional concepts in our minds and translate them with our hand or mouse into a two-dimensional space,” she explains. “But when doing this, the screen can distort our main concepts.”
She began with a research question: Could we edit, not just visualize, concepts in 3D? Her Innovation Incubator, “Instinct to Digital Impact,” was a path to an answer—and ultimately, a methodology.