HomeVR
Creative technology
In 2020, I recreated the house where I grew up as an Oculus Quest environment. The project explored how photographs, architectural measurements and memory could make a familiar place recognizable in VR.
Reconstructing the house
I used photographs, measurements from the original architectural drawings, and my own memory to rebuild the house. I handled the modelling, development and design myself, using Blender and Unity with the Oculus Quest as the target headset.
Recognition through colour and light
What struck me most was how little geometric detail was needed for the place to feel familiar. Even with low-resolution models and textures, matching the colours and lighting could make a room recognizable. Family members who knew the real house tried the prototype and thought the virtual version felt very similar.
Working within the headset's limits
The hardest limitation was balancing texture quality against draw calls, the separate instructions the headset must process to render a scene. I had to use only a few texture maps and decide how large each map could be. Combining surfaces into shared texture maps helped performance, but every addition had to fit within a limited texture budget.
Where the prototype stopped
I completed the house itself and had started adding furniture and personal photographs. If I continued the project today, I would keep building out those objects and details rather than changing its basic idea. The existing model established the place; the unfinished work was filling it with more of what had been there.
Modelled, designed and developed by Edvard Pires Bjørgen in 2020. Described here from the version shown in my earlier portfolio.