Excerpts from this content were originally published on Heavy Projects.
“Parabola” is an interactive, augmented reality mural created by Heavy Projects for San Francisco Design Week 2017 at Pier 27. The mural depicts a fractal background with a digital sculpture of a chair in the foreground built by impossibly interlocking and twisted parabolas. Fractals are useful in modeling structures and describe partly random or chaotic phenomena such as fluid turbulence that often expresses itself in parabolic shapes. A foundational design form, the parabola is found in everything from graphic design to product design to the sketches of DaVinci to natural forms.
Users can “question” what they see by interacting with and investigating the chair form that simultaneously looks familiar yet strange, metallic yet organic. Additionally, interior designers can use the AR functionality to experiment with the scene by moving the chair to different parts of the virtual room, changing its colors, changing the colors of the wall fractal design and the lighting – and even exploding the entire design suite as a form of design protest. And on the Pier 27 overhanging roof, we’ve embedded a microcosm of the galaxy as the ultimate high-ceilinged loft space for this living design.
Heavy Projects recently released an interactive, augmented reality poster that highlights the 2017 installation. Play with the furniture models, change the colors, and when you’re done – you can even blow it up in typical Bay Area protest or 3D print the sculpture. For a limited time receive 50% off the poster using code: SFDW-LD1CYCB. SFDW will be collaborating with Heavy Projects on future poster engagements, so get this first one in the series now!