HOLOSYNC A Comparative Study on Mixed Reality and Contemporary Communication Methods in a Building Design Context

The integration of technology into the design process has enabled us to communicate through various modes of virtuality, while more traditional face-to-face collaborations are becoming less frequent, specifically for large scale companies. Both modes of communication have benefits and disadvantages virtual communication enables us to connect over large distances, however can often lead to miscommunication, while face-to-face communication builds stronger relationship, however may be problematic for geographically dispersed teams. Mixed Reality is argued to be a hybrid of face-to-face and virtual communication, and is yet to be integrated into the building design process. Despite its current limitations, such as field of view, Mixed Reality is an effective tool that generates high levels of nonverbal and verbal communication, and encourages a high and equal level of participation in comparison to virtual and face-to-face communication. Being a powerful communication tool for complex visualisations, it would be best implemented in the later stages of the building design process where teams can present designs to clients or where multiple designers can collaborate over final details.