01 — Sound Placement
The installation centers on a 3D-printed house with a projector bringing it to life — casting historical imagery onto its surface and extending the illusion of a sidewalk outward into the viewer's physical space, so that the boundary between the model and the room dissolves.
Problem: The sound component — recordings of someone moving through a house, doing ordinary things — wasn't creating the right sense of presence. Placed in front of the house, it felt external, like an announcement rather than a world.
Process: Tested the full installation during a structured presentation demo and gathered feedback on how the audio felt in relation to the projection.
Decision: Moved the speaker behind the house, so the sound appears to come from within. This made the recordings feel like evidence of life inside — reinforcing the projection's illusion rather than competing with it.
02 — 3D-Printed House: Scale
Problem: The first print was too small. At that scale the projection lost detail and the model read as a toy rather than a home.
Process: Tested projection quality on the small model. The surface area wasn't large enough for the projector to render texture or detail legibly.
Decision: Reprinted at a larger scale. The increased surface area made the projection sharp and the model convincing in the space.
03 — Room Projection Surface: Materials
Problem: The projection needed a surface that could hold image quality, look intentional in the space, and be portable between locations.
Process: Explored fabric over cardboard for an ephemeral quality — the fabric diffused the projection and washed out the image. Needed something that could hold a sharp image while still reading as designed rather than raw material.
Decision: Switched to canvas paper folded into an origami-style structure. Held projection quality, had a cleaner aesthetic, and was light enough to transport and reinstall across locations.
04 — Digital Interface: Platform Pivot
Problem: The digital component needed to be accessible via QR code on a phone at the physical installation — something someone could pull up in seconds and interact with immediately.
Process: Built the first version in Unity — a 3D scene of the house's interior rooms set in an open field, navigable in space. See the Unity build here. Unity scenes were too large to load quickly on mobile, making the QR interaction dead on arrival. Attempted to compress the scene — still too large. Needed a different approach entirely.
Decision: Rendered the same scene as a spherical image in Cinema4D, wrapped it in a JavaScript-driven sphere, and built custom navigation in JavaScript. Tested with users — the page navigation wasn't legible; visitors didn't know how to move between sections. Revised the interaction design before the final show.
