In 2022, two decades after their founding, creative agency Squint/Opera joined forces with fellow studios ICRAVE, 59, and VMI Studio under the banner of Journey, a "superpowered organization" bridging physical and digital design. Long before the merger, Squint/Opera had envisioned a world where media architecture would enrich urban life and reshape how we interact with the built environment. Today, under Journey, the studio continues to open new gateways not only for our perception and experience of physical reality but for the mission and composition of contemporary design practices.
In the latest edition of Archinect In-Depth: Visualization, Archinect's Niall Patrick Walsh spoke with Journey Managing Director Matt Quinn, who had worked at Squint/Opera since 2019, about the studio's work and what it says about the future of physical and digital space.
In 2022, just over two decades after its founding, London-based 3D experience pioneers Squint/Opera merged with U.S.-based innovation and design agency Journey, adopting the new official title 'Squint/Opera, a Journey Studio.' The meeting came at an appropriate time for Squint/Opera, which describes its mission as to ‘bring the digital and physical worlds closer together.’ Back then, metaverse-mania was in full swing, with architects and designers intrigued by a new digital economy emerging for spatial design, while the initial launch of AI-powered image generators such as Midjourney introduced machine-generated visualization workflows to a new audience.
“We joined Journey because visualization was becoming a highly commoditized market, and the tools were becoming so prolific that coming to a studio like ours and paying thousands of dollars for a single image was becoming harder to achieve,” Matt Quinn told me in a recent conversation on the broader theme of visualization. Now a Managing Director at Journey, Quinn has worked at Squint/Opera since 2019. “This was not where our interest was. We are more interested in the future of cities and of architecture.”
Long before the Journey acquisition, Squint/Opera had made a name for themselves in narrative-driven experiential design at the intersection of physical and digital worlds. Since emerging from the practice of British architect and artist Will Alsop, the studio has played with the latest technology on hand to alter how people think about and move through built spaces.
At the Empire State Building Observatory, for example, the studio worked with Thinc Design and Beneville Studios to transform the tower's queuing experience into what they call a “carefully choreographed journey, seamlessly linking our digital elements with the building’s expansive history and current relevance in pop culture.” In one room, visitors are immersed in a recreation of the building’s 1930s-era construction; in another, they face a life-size King Kong.
“When we showed the client 2D imagery, they were having a hard time imagining what the spaces were going to look like,” Quinn recalled, reflecting on the design process behind the Empire State project. “As soon as we put them in a VR headset, and they were in a physical space, with moving images on the wall and sounds changing as they moved their head, they were able to take real-time screenshots and give feedback. That experience got us thinking: Surely this is now a design tool; an interactive design tool.”
I don’t think a lot of architects consider what people think about before they arrive somewhere, during the experience, and afterward. — Matt Quinn, Journey
While building walkthroughs had been a marketing staple of the client-facing design process for some time when Squint/Opera were engaged on the Empire State project, Quinn wasn't impressed by their quality. When atmosphere, moving media, and engagement possibilities were added, however, the user's relationship with virtual space could change.
“Visualization hadn’t really changed since the Renaissance,” Quinn continued. “People were still showing 3D perspectives and drawings, or moving around in Rhino, etc. However, if you step inside that world, you can see the relationship between volumes and how the cityscape interacts with what you are proposing. It changes your perspective on what you are thinking about.”
When Squint/Opera became part of Journey in 2022, such learnings were formalized into an approach Journey now calls ‘multidimensional experiences’ (MDX) that unfold across physical, virtual, and augmented realms. MDX places the end-to-end human experience at its core, with a tech-enabled process that allows clients to more holistically understand the proposed scheme; spaces which themselves seek to push the boundaries of how technology can transform the end-user experience.
“For us, it is the future of design,” Quinn told me. “I don’t think a lot of architects consider what people think about before they arrive somewhere, during the experience, and afterward. MDX is tech-enabled, but it is not in-your-face technology. Design is at its core. These are meant to be beautiful spaces that are inviting and interesting, coming from the highest quality of design that we can achieve.”
To deliver on multidimensional experiences, Journey has built a multidisciplinary team; people who, in Quinn’s words, “take an interest in architecture but are not architects.” Across their London, New York, and Dubai locations, Journey’s team spans producers, creative directors, and motion graphics artists to full stack developers, sound designers, brand strategists, and a host of other design and technology backgrounds.
“In university labs, you sometimes have a behavioral scientist next to an urban planner, who is also next to an interior designer,” Quinn described. “We’ve tried to build that in our studio, and our company is essentially a real-world manifestation of that. It is not a traditional architecture practice, and it is not an exhibition design practice. It is a multidimensional design practice.”
Journey’s outputs can be as diverse as the team behind them. In one instance, the studio may work with a museum or attraction to use media design as a tool for knowledge transfer while, in another, they may be commissioned to construct a Virtual Twin of a physical space. In one project, the team may play an advisory role in visual experiences while, in another, they may engage in film production such as their 2022 collaboration with OMA and Buro Happold on the future of hospitals. In our conversation, Quinn also noted how Journey’s multidisciplinary team can be deployed in fields not often open to traditional architecture practices.
It is not a traditional architecture practice, and it is not an exhibition design practice. It is a multidimensional design practice. — Matt Quinn, Journey
“Sometimes, we could be working with a company who wants to know how Generation Alpha will purchase a plane ticket in the future,” Quinn uses as an example. “We get asked those questions because we can also deliver it. We are different from an IDO [insights-driven organization] which might only deliver a PDF saying ‘We think you should do this.’ We can actually create the space.”
The theme of ‘storytelling’ was omnipresent in my discussion with Quinn. Despite embracing the latest technology in their work, Quinn noted the influence of the 1830 A Bird’s-eye View of the Bank of England; a famous watercolor by Joseph Gandy for John Soane, showcasing Soane’s design for the bank in a bird’s-eye cutaway axonometric view today commonly referred to as ‘The Bank in ruins.’
“It told a dramatic story and, at the same time, communicated a piece of architecture,” Quinn explained. “Humans are part of these forms; how we move through them, how we interact with them. Storytelling is a really important aspect. Even if we build an open world, there is still a narrative path to follow; there can be multiple. You are engaging humans in storytelling within a physical space. When that is missing, it can be a completely dead and uninteresting experience.”
Even if we build an open world, there is still a narrative path to follow; there can be multiple. — Matt Quinn, Journey
As explored in a previous article for the Archinect In-Depth: Visualization series, perspective drawing was still considered a new, cutting-edge, immersive visualization tool at the time of Soane and Gandy. Reflecting on the possibilities afforded by immersive technologies today, Quinn highlights the potential to look beyond the one-to-one, exclusively virtual experience of VR headsets, and find ways of placing people in a shared immersive experience together without entirely leaving physical space. Quinn cited Journey's work on the interior design for Sphere in Las Vegas as a high-profile example.
“At [...] Sphere, instead of walking through the door into a regular concession area, you feel like you are stepping into a different world,” Quinn explained. “It took a lot of conversations and deep thinking about what it would feel like to hang out there for an hour or two before the show. It needed to feel completely different from any other performance venue you’ve ever gone to.”
“The technology isn’t in your face,” Quinn added. “It’s not just about putting a bunch of screens everywhere; it’s controllable. Every time you walk into the area, it is different. We achieved that mainly through architectural lighting and using reflection and materials. When there’s a concert happening, the venue is full and you don’t really appreciate the space. But [Sphere] wants people to return and see multiple shows. The space itself therefore has to be fully programmable.”
The resulting experiences and narrative stories that Journey and its studios do tell do not have to take place in the present day, or in familiar environments. When working with museums, the studio may find themselves designing experiences that take the audience back to the War of 1812 or forward to future habitats on Mars. For that reason, Quinn also cites the studio’s involvement in Expo pavilions, where countries keen to explore the future of their own cities are attracted to Journey’s end-to-end offering.
We are not interested in replicating what exists in the world; we are looking for some other threads to pull on. — Matt Quinn, Journey
“Traditionally, they would have gone to an architect and an exhibition designer,” Quinn explained. “Instead, they can come to Journey and say ‘Okay, help me understand the entire visitor experience.’ What is the pre-digital engagement? What happens when they walk through the threshold? What information is shown? What can people explore online from their homes? What can they take away afterward? That is where our interest lies.”
Likewise, Journey's experimental HomeForest project makes use of the Apple Vision Pro to transport users from the living room to a multi-sensory forest setting. In our conversation, Quinn stressed that the project is not exclusively virtual reality but rather an augmented reality experience that connects the user’s real surroundings to a fantasy environment.
“We are not interested in replicating what exists in the world; we are looking for some other threads to pull on,” Quinn explained. “We are firm believers in asking how digital technology can change the physical spaces we are in. I feel that media architecture still hasn’t delivered on that promise.”
Speaking with Quinn, it becomes clear that the promise of media architecture extends to more places in the built environment than one would first expect. While museums, expo pavilions, and entertainment venues such as Sphere are purposely designed to offer the audience permission to temporarily suspend the laws of time and space, projects such as HomeForest speak to a wider possibility for media architecture to transform everyday typologies.
“When walking through a shopping mall, what is the point of only looking at columns and glass displays?” Quinn posited. “Why can’t you be in an Alice in Wonderland environment? There is technology that exists today that can help us get there.”
Citing Archigram’s Playground City as an inspiration, Quinn believes that media technology can transform the urban experience. In a clothing store, he noted, a tech-enabled fitting room mirror could help you pick an outfit. In an airport, technology could help reduce anxiety for travelers, whether through calm lighting or ordering food to your gate. In traditional office buildings, technology could create a tranquil, productive environment during the day before being transformed into a lively atmosphere at night for receptions and social events.
“Not everyone needs to build [...] Sphere,” Quinn noted, “but everyone needs to think that way. A hospital needs to think that way. A restaurant needs to think that way. A club needs to think that way.”
“I do think these types of experiences are becoming expected,” Quinn added. “They're no longer extremely novel. People aren't making brick-and-mortar spaces to support a brand unless they're thoroughly thought through and they're delivering an experience that people aren't getting when browsing through products online and clicking ‘add to basket.’”
Not everyone needs to build Sphere, but everyone needs to think that way. — Matt Quinn, Journey
Like Archigram, Journey’s approach embodies a new-age confluence of technology, entertainment, and design. While our built environment remains governed by three dimensions of space and one of time, Quinn’s team appears to be using media technology as a vehicle not to leave those dimensions behind but to find a portal through them. They have arrived at a blended reality that, for designers, technologists, and citizens alike, still feels barely traversed.
“I have a deep love and appreciation for architecture; I just know it needs to evolve and change,” Quinn noted as our conversation concluded. “That doesn’t mean we lose sight of natural light, clear sight lines, and volumes. We cannot just throw away the rule book on architecture. We are pointing to the future and asking how we can create spaces that people really want to be in, and want to come back to.”
Niall Patrick Walsh is an architect and journalist, living in Belfast, Ireland. He writes feature articles for Archinect and leads the Archinect In-Depth series. He is also a licensed architect in the UK and Ireland, having previously worked at BDP, one of the largest design + ...
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2 Comments
".....everyone needs to think that way." Give us a break Matt Quinn
I used to like their work pre 2017 or so - since then it seems to be a lot of snake oil, sorry
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