Molecular City is an installation conceived with Royal College of Art students to question the nature of the XXI-st century city.

By taking advantage of Augmented Reality technology, Molecular City allows the public to create their collective hybrid city by superimposing virtual architectures onto the existing city of Porto via computer projection. The physical space of Porto becomes a canvas constantly connected to the endless possibilities provided by virtual space.

The installation consists of two tables and a screen [fig.1-2]. Visitors can create a half real/half fictional landscape of Porto by positioning virtual architecture on Porto’s map and visualising them on the screen. A library of virtual architectures to play with will be provided by either students’ models or free downlodable models from the Internet.

Author: Tobias Klein and Roberto Bottazzi with Tasos Varoudis and ADS1 from the Royal College of Art.