Exhibiting the Immersive: Museum Architecture with Digital Augmentation

Abstract

Through several examples in the recent 5 years, more and more museum seek to cooperate their experience of viewing with what's popular through social media: digital arts and moving image. As the designers starting to utilize more and more moving image and 3-d projecting into installation, even augmented reality and virtual reality, one thing seems to be neglected, the architectural space itself didn't match up with the desire of evolve in Museum. Museum designing coherently with digital augmentation can show its spatial qualities as both an independent architecture, and an immersive imagery experience in the present age. An age that calls and relies on digital media and screen more than ever before. This proposal aimed to explore the possibilities how architecture space shift with the participation of digital techniques, especially in the culture architectural space of museum. Through the design of a proposed National Women Museum in the National Mall in DC, this thesis project focusing on the study of how space is transformed and used in different situations while both with digital images and without. The study also go through different historical application of immersive design and their architectural character. By utilizing precedence experience with latest architecture technology, the thesis explored on the spatial aspect of how exhibition architectural reacting towards digital immersive technology. In the design project, the aim is to purpose a sequence of experience for the visitor with sanctuary-liked spatial quality and coherent structure system supporting the technical façade and architecture itself. Considering both the historical context of the National Mall as the site and the rubric for architecture, the design tries to develop a narrative through the argument of what an museum architecture should be like.