London Borough of Redbridge
The Nascence of An Interactive Marvel

The Seven Kings Hub is a project by the London Borough of Redbridge (LBR), a government organization to create a community space for civilians of the UK to indulge in. The three-floor community zone required an interactive building design platform to gather the feedback of civilians. And a video that will take the civilians on a tour to explore and decide the allure that will adorn the interiors of the community hub. 

Client Requirements

Designing a community space to suit the taste of thousands is definitely a tough row to hoe. So understanding the scope to the core and conducting a brainstorming round was a must to come up with a solution that everyone will agree with. The client requirements that were presented before were to create a 3D walkthrough video and an interactive platform to collect the feedback of the citizens. The duration of the project to be completed was 5 weeks. 

A Solution to the Win 

Upon studying the scope and the brainstorming round, a plan was formulated to craft a 3D walkthrough video and an interactive web application that allows users to effortlessly design and collect feedback was finalized. 

All of these designs from the website were then stored in a database for analysis and feedback too was collected to understand the likings and preferences of the community members. 

Challenges to Transcend

Just like a wise person once said, every challenge you come across is an opportunity to rise and out best. Every project we have completed had its own set of challenges awaiting us.

In this project, the client had numerous functionalities that needed to be added. However, catering to all the functionalities the clients proposed for a website was definitely a challenge for us but we successfully managed to tackle it.

Time was the next constraint that was awaiting us. The 3D video and website are two standalone projects, so completing both within 5 weeks of time was definitely a challenge for us. And incorporating the last-minute changes into this limited was another catch. However, we successfully managed to tackle each dilemma we came across by working together as a team within the stipulated time.  

The website holds a feature of exploring the interiors of the building where the camera needs to move as the user walks through the three-story building. And this was another constraint waiting for us. Even when crafting the 3D video we had to come across challenges like overcoming model limitations and populating people.  

3D Walk-Through

To create a deeper perception of the Seven Kings Hub's exteriors and interiors, we first created a 3D walkthrough video. The video was made with a 4K high poly 3D model that uses a high polygon count to increase the quality of the video. 

The video had crafted several minute details to sweeten the zooming experience for the users. Creating a video like this helped us give insight to the community members on how the community zone will look like and the kind of amenities it will possess.  

While creating this unique 3D environment we emphasized clean, playful, and vibrant designs to make it looks as real as it gets. We kept a keen eye on the finishing of the edges of the material used for the furniture and ensured that the copy meets necessary quality standards in real-time.

The Interactive Web Application

The next in line was the interactive model website. The client requested numerous functionalities like changing the floor tiles, ceilings, and furniture, walking across a three-story building, saving all these changes, collecting feedback, and so much more. So incorporating all these functionalities into an interactive model was indeed a challenge as only applications can hold this many features. 

Creating the whole interactive model using a high poly model is not only time-consuming but can also increase the loading time affecting the overall experience. So we decided to switch to a low poly model for the website, and even after that, the website was 450 MB in size. The whole model was built in Unity within 3 weeks.  

As the time was limited, we decided to test the interactive model parallelly during construction as this can save a lot of time. We even submitted feedback and suggestions to the clients parallelly to make sure the project is completed within the time.

The Final Glimpse of Perfection

Just like an estuary, the project has finally reached perfection and was presented for the civilians to grasp an idea of how the community hall would look and redecorate the zone with an idea of their own by changing up the floors, ceiling, and furniture. What this project taught us is that ‘the harder the stride, the prettier the view'.