How Moshe Safdie’s Iconic Habitat 67 Was Reborn in a Virtual World

2025-01-08T15:20:00-05:00

When Habitat 67 was first unveiled to the world almost six decades ago, it changed the landscape not only of Montreal, Canada, but of architectural discourse on how modern buildings could be designed, constructed, and lived in. The structure also catapulted its young architect, Moshe Safdie, to a global architectural stage that he still holds today.

The acclaim won by Safdie and his pioneering residential scheme is made all the more remarkable by the fact that the Habitat 67 we know today is only a fragment of a much more ambitious community that was never realized.

Decades later, a team led by Safdie Architects, Epic Games, and Neoscape collaborated to recreate the original intention of Habitat 67 in the hyper-immersive Unreal Engine visualization software. Below, we retell the story of how the so-called Project Hillside came to be, with perspectives from Safdie Architects Senior Partner Jaron Lubin.

This feature article is part of the Archinect In-Depth: Visualization series.

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Archinect - Features

How Moshe Safdie’s Iconic Habitat 67 Was Reborn in a Virtual World