Heritage XR
When I visited my ancestral homeland in Okinawa for the first time, I visited the historic Shuri Castle, a UNESCO heritage site, which was still undergoing repairs from a fire that ravaged the castle grounds in 2019.
The repair efforts are slowgoing because of a shortage of knowledgeable craftsmen and the ability to source materials. As part of this initiative to restore the main structures of Shuri Castle, the local government used crowd-sourced images and photogrammetry to digitally reconstruct the castle facade. This was a crucial component of the rebuilding efforts.
I explored how using point clouds and the democratizing capacity of web technologies and XR interactions might be leveraged for digital preservation of heritage architecture and inspire the resurgence of cultural practices and making. I am in the process of implementing interactive controls to enable the exploration of how generative machine learning and CAD CAM methods might revitalize traditional modes of building and assembly within the broader context of socio-cultural and emotional landscapes.