άβυσσος avissos

Team member(s): Christina Christoforou and Leila Sheikhzadeh
Modified by Christina Christoforou on December 12, 2024

What if punishment and rehabilitation could coexist in a fully immersive virtual environment?

Can justice be achieved in the virtual realm?

A Transformative Journey in Emotional Rehabilitation

Avissos, named after the Greek word for the deepest part of the sea, reimagines emotional rehabilitation as a unique, multi-stage journey. This concept challenges individuals to confront empathy, ethical decision-making, and personal growth through a deeply immersive experience.

The Stages of Avissos employ an experimental design methodology rooted in recursive geometry, metaballs and tessellation. These techniques create dynamic, evolving spaces that reflect the emotional and psychological challenges of transformation. By blending these geometric principles with immersive environments, Avissos offers a pathway to growth that is as profound as the depths it is named after

Concept

Avissos a VR Prison Project reimagines incarceration by integrating punishment, rehabilitation, and redemption into two interconnected virtual worlds. The Underground, or “Hell,” is a dynamic and disorienting escape room and maze, reflecting the challenges of punishment. Constantly morphing shapes and spaces create an unsettling, ever-changing environment where prisoners face individualized challenges tied to their crimes. These challenges require problem-solving and teamwork, representing struggle, personal reform, and growth through adversity. In contrast, Above Ground, or “Heaven,” offers a peaceful, stable virtual space where prisoners serve the remainder of their sentence after escaping the underground. This environment fosters community, collaboration, and tranquility, symbolizing redemption and stability through its calm, unchanging nature.

STAGE 01: Empatheia
An AI guard monitors inmates’ emotions and activates a VR experience to help them understand a victim’s perspective when empathy is low.

STAGE 02: ICE Avisoss
Participants enter a virtual Antarctic environment designed to reduce stress and build resilience, facing extreme cold as a punishment.

STAGE 03: Dilima
An ethical dilemma simulator tests moral choices. Unethical responses lead to consequences like memory reprocessing and sensory overload, enhanced by heavy metal music.

Oasis of Redemption
The final stage offers rehabilitation activities such as gardening therapy and mindfulness practices to support personal growth and redemption.

Methodology

L-system

Alphabet

Rule set: F -> F[+F] [&F] [-F]

Metaball

2D/plan

Design Approach

An L-System is a computational model used to simulate growth patterns in nature, such as plants and fractals. It works by starting with an initial string (axiom) and applying rules that replace symbols iteratively, creating increasingly complex structures. Symbols can represent drawing commands (e.g., move forward, turn, save/restore position) to generate visual patterns, often interpreted using turtle graphics. L-Systems are widely used in procedural modeling, plant simulation, fractal generation, and computational design, allowing complex forms to emerge from simple, rule-based processes.

Metaballs are organic-looking 3D shapes used in computer graphics, created by blending spheres or other primitives based on proximity. Each metaball has a field of influence, and when two or more come close, their fields merge smoothly to form a single surface. This process is calculated using mathematical functions, often employing isosurfaces to define the boundaries. Metaballs are popular in visual effects, simulations, and design for creating fluid, soft, or blob-like structures.

The design approach combines L-Systems and Metaballs to create complex, organic structures that simulate growth and fluidity. The L-System acts as a guiding path, generating a branching framework inspired by natural patterns, while the Metaballs define the architectural spaces by enveloping and blending around these paths into smooth, cohesive forms. This integration allows for a dynamic interplay between structured growth and soft, organic volumes, resulting in a design that merges geometry and fluidity, evoking both natural and architectural aesthetics.

Computational Work Flow

Form Finding Process

Form iterations

Iteration 1

HEAVEN
L-system
iterations: 6
angle: 64
initial length: 19

Meataball
point on crv: 1.000/0.644/0.705
threshold: 0.02
accuracy: 0.10
sin: 0.20

HELL
L-system
Iterations: 3
Angle: 50
Start vector: 150

Metaball
Divide crv: 1
Threshold: 1
Pts population: 24
Accuracy: 0.10
Sin: 0.20

Iteration 2

HEAVEN
L-system
iterations: 6
angle: 64
initial length: 19

Meataball
point on crv: 1.000/0.361/0.905
threshold: 0.02
accuracy: 0.10
sin: 0.20

HELL
L-system
iterations: 3
angle: 50
star vector: 150

Metaball
divide crv: 1
pts population: 16
threshold: 0.02
accuracy: 0.10
sin: 0.20

Iteration 3

HEAVEN
L-system
iterations: 6
angle: 64
initial length: 19

Meataball
point on crv: 0.000/0.816/1.000
threshold: 0.02
accuracy: 0.10
sin: 0.20

HELL
L-system
iterations: 3
angle: 72
star vector: 150

Metaball
divide crv: 1
pts population: 20
threshold: 0.02
accuracy: 0.10
sin: 0.20

Iteration 4