How Physical Models Complete Virtual Multimediality

This paper is based on the two papers of 2021 and 2022 and shows how the use of haptic models can take the mediation of architectural concepts from the fields of archaeology, building research and art history to a new level. Unlike the primarily visual mediation strategies that are common above all in the field of architecture, simply because architecture can only be experienced in its entirety when actually visited on a full scale, the method presented here pursues the use of haptic models in physical reality not with the aim of reproducing the architecture itself, but its architectural concept. It is thus in the tradition of the visualisation of uncertainty developed by the authors, which already concentrated on conveying the concepts, the architectural ideas, in the visual as well. This excludes not only the use of relics, but also many speculative approaches, as they are often used in the film and games industry as photorealism. Their use serves solely to convey a certain atmosphere of being, whereas here it is a matter of conveying spatial concepts with a clear reference to the respective science. The scientific nature itself is also the content of the communication, and therefore it fits in with the visual strategy that the haptic models do not merely reproduce an external appearance, but also convey a deeper level, in this case that of the circulation concept. The object of the investigation, an amphitheatre of unique construction, is particularly suitable for this special kind of mediation, as it deliberately resists the usual advantages of an arrangement that submits to the terrain and thus consists almost entirely of extraordinary solutions.