Bristol Hotel Virtual Reality Experience
2019
Hotel Bristol was once part of the changing urban and cultural landscape of Pera. Rather than representing its history only through archival material, the project reconstructed selected interiors as a full-scale virtual environment, allowing visitors to enter and experience spaces that no longer exist in their original form. The experience focused on the hotel’s entrance hall and one of its rooms, reconstructed at 1:1 scale in VR and integrated into the wider exhibition narrative.
Design Approach
The project approached VR as an architectural medium rather than simply a visualisation tool. Our aim was not to create an image of the past, but to reconstruct enough of its spatial character for visitors to understand it through scale, movement, materiality, light and atmosphere.
This meant treating the virtual environment much like a physical architectural project. Proportions, architectural details, furniture, materials and lighting all contributed to how the space would be perceived. At the same time, every decision had to respond to the available historical evidence and to the technical conditions of a real-time VR environment.
Where information was incomplete, the reconstruction required careful interpretation rather than arbitrary completion, maintaining a clear relationship between historical research and design decisions.
My role was to translate historical and architectural research into an immersive environment, working between architectural reconstruction, exhibition narrative and VR production.
I directed the reconstruction of the selected interiors and oversaw the development of their spatial proportions, architectural details, materials, furniture, lighting and overall atmosphere. I also worked closely with the curatorial, research and digital production teams to ensure that the historical material could be translated into a coherent visitor experience.
A central part of my role was maintaining architectural consistency throughout the digital production process while balancing historical accuracy, experiential qualities and the technical requirements of VR.
Production Process
The project began with the study and interpretation of the available historical and architectural material relating to Hotel Bristol. Working with the exhibition’s curatorial and research teams, we identified the spaces, architectural elements and details that would be most meaningful to reconstruct. These references were then translated into an architectural model and gradually developed into a full-scale virtual environment. The production moved through several interconnected stages:Historical research → Architectural interpretation → Spatial reconstruction → 3D modelling → Material and furniture development → Lighting → VR optimisation → Experience testing
Throughout the process, the environment was repeatedly reviewed from inside VR rather than only through conventional drawings or computer screens. This was particularly important because decisions that appeared convincing in a model could feel very different when experienced at human scale. Proportion, viewing distance, movement and the relationship between the body and the reconstructed environment therefore became part of the design process itself.
The final stage was not simply about completing the digital model, but about understanding how a visitor would encounter it. Movement, viewpoint, scale and atmosphere were considered alongside historical reconstruction. This shifted the project from being a representation of architecture towards becoming an architectural experience in its own right. Visitors could physically occupy the reconstructed interiors and perceive spatial relationships that would be difficult to communicate through photographs, plans or archival documents alone.
The completed VR experience was installed as part of Looking from In-Between: A Section of Meşrutiyet Street at the Istanbul Research Institute. By placing the virtual reconstruction within the physical exhibition, the project created a dialogue between archive, architecture and immersive technology.
For me, the project also became an important investigation into how architectural knowledge can be communicated beyond conventional representation. VR allowed a lost space to be understood not only intellectually or visually, but spatially; through the visitor’s own sense of scale, presence and movement.
Title: Bristol Hotel Virtual Reality Experience
Location: Istanbul
Year: 2019
Studio: Apollo Digital & Architecture
Client: Istanbul Research Institue
Type: Cultural Heritage, Virtual Reality, XR, Exhibition, Architectural Digital Reconstruction
Status: Completed
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