Virtual Reality for Interior Design History. The Ofir House as Experimental Project

Abstract

In a world where technologies are becoming a current interface in daily life, this study is aligned with the digital era and the advantages obtained from the Virtual Reality in order to extend the knowledge and the dissemination of Interior Design History. Teaching that subject is also a privileged academic area of enjoying the exploration of virtual spaces and of learning through an experience closer to the reality. This article discusses the experimental project that enlightens Ofir House designed by the Portuguese architect Fernando Távora (1923–2005) through Virtual Reality. Ofir House, as a landmark in Portuguese Architecture and interior design, is known as a “compound” between modernism and tradition, in a criticism of international architecture that, at the time, Portugal tried to emulate. This experimental space boosts the understanding of the necessary steps to create the Virtual Space and to convert it into Virtual Reality. Moreover, the methodology applied for Ofir House can be used to convert any historical domestic space from 2d to Virtual Reality, and therefore be replicated throughout other interiors. This article focuses on phase 1 and 2 of a methodology that can be extended to 5 phases. And if in effect phase 1 and phase 2 are already a coherent discussion’s topic, the other 3 phases that constitute subject of another article are already emerging in the present text.