Virtual architecture is a real winner

YESTERDAY the Cosmos interactive astronomy centre at Blackrock Castle in Cork, where visitors can learn about space by virtually flying there themselves, became the first Irish project to win a THEA (Themed Entertainment Association Award) from the US.

The entire experience was created by narrative architect Martello Media, which has won more than 20 international awards. It has won the AHI's (Association for Heritage Interpretation) Interpret Britain and Ireland Award for four years running, for projects at the Herschel Museum in Bath, England; at Kilmainham Jail; for designing the exhibition at the Glendalough Visitors Centre, Wicklow; and the WB Yeats exhibition at the National Library, Dublin.

Martello could be about to get its fifth AHI award. This year's awards ceremony takes place on November 26th in the Atlantic Edge Exhibition at the Cliffs of Moher, also designed by Martello.

The awards are given to schemes that interpret a theme, place, site, collection, event or other topic for the public. The judges look for a "demonstration of innovative, inspirational and provocative interpretation".

At the Cliffs of Moher such innovation includes an immersive projection space that allows visitors to soar off the cliff as a seabird and view the colourful life on the seabed. At the Yeats exhibition touch screens link every object on display, and into the back of house collection, to an interactive timeline of the poet's life. The entire exhibition and Yeats collection will be able to be toured online in virtual reality after it has left the building.

In Kilmainham Jail an audio visual installation enables guides to tailor their presentation to suit the audience. Previously guides had plonked visitors in front of a film at the end of the tour: the new audio visual work has been praised for the way it keeps the group interacting with the guide.

At Cosmos, Ireland's first interactive cinema challenges visitors to work together to save Earth from an approaching comet. They meet experts along the way who are actual scientists working in the field in Ireland.

All of this can be achieved by having a company that uses the skills from various disciplines, says architect Mark Leslie of Martello Media.

Graphic designers, computer programmers, animators, script writers, film makers, exhibition designers and architects all combine in a multidisciplinary team to create immersive narrative spaces. Martello has just won the contract to undertake a major re-vamp of the Guinness Storehouse.

When he was working as an architect in London, Leslie (who grew up in Castle Leslie) won a competition to design a visitor centre at the former Battersea Power station in 1984. While the project was never realised, he became interested in such facilities.

"When I worked in London there was a building boom and I found it difficult to get staff so I computerised the whole office with Apple Macs. I found that I could do these presentations, using walk-throughs, and then I set up in Ireland where there was a lot of skill in this area."

His work has enabled him to use exhibition design to combine real architecture with virtual architecture, "creating amazing walk-throughs of buildings in which you can educate people and tell stories".

"A lot of people in digital media design were graphic designers or computer programmers but I found that architects could bring in a whole new skill set to it," he says.

Leslie still creates real architecture along with his virtual work, and an interpretative centre he designed in Stowe House and Gardens in England included the actual pavilion. This scheme nabbed three awards.