UNREALISED - Museum of Sydney

Warrane, Gadigal (Sydney)

A real-time exploration of the complexities of creating sustainable precincts.

Realising Sydney lets visitors recreate Tallawoladah / The Rocks in real-time across an immersive projection using a series of playful interactive dials. Change each block's purpose, occupancy and greening levels to find the balance to create a productive, liveable, environmentally, and ultimately more sustainable Sydney. The exhibition ran from June to November 2022 at the Museum of Sydney as part of 'Unrealised Sydney', a guest curated by Robert Freestone, exploring Sydney's sometimes misguided design proposals in the second half of the 20th Century.

We were invited to create a playful and interactive installation at the Museum of Sydney to complement their 'Unrealised Sydney' exhibition. Using an immersive projection to encourage cross-collaboration, we were tasked to demonstrate the complexities of building a precinct to understand the delicate balance of sustainability.

We used Unreal Engine to build a 3D environment and real-time application. A custom rotary encoder and dials were designed and constructed to control the Unreal application, allowing for seamless integration. To accompany the experience, a subtle and slightly utopian soundscape featuring recordings from the Rocks supported the experience.

With advice from urban planner Urbis, we broke down the different building types to develop a framework for how productivity, environmental, and livability levels would be affected by increasing density and greening measures. Using intuitive physical dials to maintain the users' focus on the projection content, visitors could see the effect of placing tall office buildings versus building parklands and recreational spaces.

Visual Artist: Matt Tillman

Sound Artist: Freya Berkhout

Hardware Engineer: Klas Lofstedt

Software Engineer: AX Interactive

Projection-Mapping: Aaron Marshall