Extended Reality of Architecture: Beyond Photo-Reality of Architectural Representation and Visualization
Extended Reality of Architecture: Beyond Photo-Reality of Architectural Representation and Visualization

Summary/Abstract: Digital information technologies are extending the realm of reality through various types of virtual, mixed, and augmented reality encompassed by the term "extended reality". This research redefines the concept of extended reality, interpreted within a broader conceptual framework that synthesizes representation and visualization of architecture, with phenomenology and post-phenomenology, cognitive theories of extended mind and philosophy of technology. Considering that photorealistic digital images currently dominate architectural visual representation, comparative analysis of the conceptual differences of photorealism and the proposed concept of extended reality reveals major distinctions regarding cognitive and phenomenological features, as well as the character of technological mediation.The theoretical conceptual framework of extended reality is based on the assumption that the technological mediation of visual spatial experience generates a dynamic space of interaction between multiple realities across many layers of experience. It provides a deeper comprehension of the role of architectural representation not merely as an instrument for visualization of ideas and descriptions of material objects. Architectural representation has generative, projective, and cognitive capacity that could augment and extend reality across multiple dimensions. The digital information technologies and generative models can be meaningfully integrated within the architectural design process by understanding their potential to change, develop, and extend the reality in which architecture is not only articulated and expressed but also concretized and experienced.

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