157: How a Video Game Became Architecture's Most Powerful New Tool

Moritz Luck, Co-Founder & Managing Director of Enscape, and Matt McMullen, Associate Principal at Abel Design Group, join us on this episode 157 of Art of Construction. In our very first Digital Built Week pre-show, episode 147 with Mac Little, Mac's parting advice to contractors and affiliates was to "think about talent outside the AEC industry" to solve our current problems and take things to the next level. To bring things full circle in this very last Digital Built Week 2019 post-show, Art of Construction caught up with Moritz Luck—an engineer originally interested in video games who has now transformed the world of architecture. Enscape is an easy to use real-time rendering & virtual reality plugin that provides architects with a quicker way to create rich real-time 3D models of their projects. The main use of this is for project presentations, both internally and for clients, and for this purpose Enscape takes things to a whole new level. After all, what do you think would be more convincing when showing a client or team your plan: a piece of paper, or an actual virtual reality experience you can walk through? As anyone in education or marketing will tell you, the more senses you can engage the more the mind retains. It is for this reason that 83% of the internationally renowned Top 100 architectural firms have adopted Enscape into their operations. The story of Enscape did not start in architecture, though, but in video gaming. Moritz originally set out with a friend to design an "omnidirectional treadmill," the physical hardware that allows you to walk in every direction when wearing VR googles. As he went down this path and tested his product ideas, though, Moritz and his partner found out that the world of gaming wasn't particularly interested in them. Another world was, though—the world of architecture  Join Devon and co-host Matt as they learn about Moritz's journey from the world of gaming to the world of architecture, some important business insights he learned along the way, and how easy to use real-time rendering solutions are transforming the AEC industry.  This episode was recorded at Digital Built Week 2019.