Sculpture of the Other Side

The Sculpture of the Other Side is a walk-in sculpture where the user can experience an immersive starry night. The sculpture is in a dome form to resemble the shape of the sky. Inside the dome, the user sees the sky full of stars on top of their heads, which is project-mapped onto the ceiling. The Dome has a total of 8 VR stations, where each user can wear a VR headset and navigate to different stargazing locations. Using a hand-held device, they can observe stars and interact with the sky. Ultimately, we aim to encourage our users to go out and travel far to stargaze in real life and appreciate the beauty of nature.

Historically, stargazing used to be a part of everyday routine. Our ancestors had a vast sky full of stars and the Milkyway above their heads every night, and they would stare at the sky for hours before bed. Today, we can still find the vestige of their interaction with the stars – we talk about our zodiac signs and we learn about stars’ movements in science classes, which had been recorded by mankind for thousands of years. Unfortunately, due to light pollution, we have lost our opportunity to stargaze.

How many of us have ever seen a sky that’s full of stars, not city lights? Through Sculpture of the Other Side, we would like to bring our lost interaction with stars back to life in downtown Toronto.

In the past, humans had an intimate connection with stars as stars served light, beauty and connection to nature. They spent hours staring at the night sky learning about their movement and astrological significance. Since time immemorial, we have lived under stars, but light pollution makes it impossible to see them in the city today. Stars were and always have been in our sky, but we just couldn’t see them. Despite being so close to nature, humans have lost touch with it.

At the beginning of the concept development stage, we decided that our users would be Torontonians who are used to the starless sky of Toronto. Being Torontonians ourselves, we knew that Toronto is famous for its breathtaking night scene, however, the artificial city lights that would never turn off have impaired our view of the stars. Of course, we did not want to keep ourselves in our own little box, so we conducted user research to learn more about other people’s experiences.

Sculpture of the Other Side enables users to connect with nature again through stargazing. Toronto is a big city and Torontonians are always on the run. Because of this, many people forget how much they can benefit from being connected to nature and its gift of beauty. Connecting with nature is more than mere observation. Nature, especially stars, is a representation of the flow of time and timeless beauty. While stargazing in the dome, users will cherish the gift of nature and also learn the importance of light pollution and how destructive it is to the ecosystem and wildlife. Additionally, the stargazing experience will linger in their head and will encourage them to travel far to stargaze in person.

As for the process, we started by establishing a style guide which includes the typography, colours and imagery for visual cohesiveness. Then, to have a clear objective about the problem we were solving, we thought about who we were designing for. We conducted a user survey, in which we gathered 37 responses. Based on these responses, we came up with two user personas and created corresponding user journeys, hoping to imagine the experience from the users’ point of view. We then went on to UX mapping which was creating flow charts, a dome floor plan, a heat map and a circulation diagram. This process helped us visualize the users’ experience, the users’ interaction with the dome, as well as the interior space. We wanted to visualize the interior even further, so we created interior renders in Maya. Lastly, we built a physical model of the dome using methods such as laser cutting and 3D modeled its digital version using Blender. The video that shows what the user would see during their VR experience was also created with Blender and AfterEffects.