Augmentations of the Real: A Critical Interrogation of the Relationship between the Actual, the Virtual and the Real

Augmentations of the Real presents itself as an occasion to critically interrogate the opportunities that Augmented Reality present for the discipline of architecture1. The problem was illuminated from different angles, reaching from aspects of the augmentation of spatial experiences through articulation and ornamentation, to aspects of AR as an aid in advanced construction methodologies. Special attention was given to the fact that these techniques seamlessly fuse aspects of symbolic culture with considerations of materialism. Augmentations of the Real is profoundly embedded in speculative territories. Moments of uncertainty collide with aspects of precision and control. The result is not an imitation of the former but rather a contemporary interpretation. The foundation can be discerned in the possibility to overlap various experience levels, which allows mining for potentialities in contemporary ornamentations. In this extent, Augmentations of the Real can be considered part of the discussion on Post Digital discourse in Architecture. An era in which computational tools are part of normal reality and other aspects of Digital Design are positioned center stage. Not the toolsets become the main actors, but the cultural agency produced by the toolsets.