As seen in The Seattle Times.
When the sales center opens in early March, prospective homebuyers will be able to visualize the neighborhood around NEXUS through an augmented reality experience using Microsoft’s HoloLens technology.
SEATTLE — NEXUS, a 382-unit, 41-story condominium high-rise set to break ground this month, is among the most progressive icons proposed for downtown Seattle’s expanding skyline.
The much-anticipated development will be previewed during the Downtown Seattle Association’s State of Downtown event on Feb. 14 at the Westin Hotel in Seattle. Hosted more than 1,100 stakeholders who are shaping the future of downtown Seattle, the program will feature keynote speaker Vishaan Chakrabarti, author of “A Country of Cities: A Manifesto for Urban America” and founder of the Partnership for Architecture & Urbanism.
It will be a timely conversation, considering that downtown Seattle is experiencing an unprecedented number of developments — 62 tower cranes are currently erected, more than in any other urban center in the U.S.
A few massive projects are transforming the city, but it’s the combination of the many individual projects that are literally creating new neighborhoods. A collection of more than two dozen high-rise residential, office, hotel and commercial developments totaling more than $6 billion of capital investment will redefine the northeastern corner of downtown Seattle being dubbed the “East Village.”
“For decades, this part of the city was defined by car dealers, parking lots and low-rise commercial buildings at the edge of downtown Seattle, but it offered available land, high-rise zoning and close proximity to South Lake Union, Capitol Hill and the business district,” says Dean Jones, president and CEO of Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty. “Now it’s the hottest urban neighborhood in the making. It’s incredible. By 2020, this will be one of the most densely populated and vibrant communities on the West Coast.”
While the East Village will eventually be home to more than 10,000 new housing units, NEXUS is the only development offering homes for sale. Its developer, Vancouver-based Burrard Group, chose Seattle for NEXUS because of the city’s innovative culture, market fundamentals and emerging status as a global city on the rise, says Christian Chan, the firm’s executive vice president.
Christian Chan of the Burrard Group, the developer of NEXUS, tries out the HoloLens experience that will be available at the sales center when in opens in March. Prospective buyers will be able to visualize the neighborhood, with the NEXUS scale model providing a physical anchor around which a virtual cityscape is formed.
“NEXUS will challenge the status quo, not just with of its unique architecture but also the lifestyle that it will afford its owners,” he says. “We are envisioning the way we will live in the future and ensuring that our residential community keeps up with the times.”
The Burrard Group has retained Seattle-based Sirqul to lead a first-of-its-kind “living lab” that’s integrated into the NEXUS sales center. This workshop of sorts will utilize an exclusive-to-project app to explore the latest technologies for homeowners to interact with their environment, order products and services, and encourage connections between residents — whether that’s to schedule pet meet-ups in the dog lounge, to join a yoga class in the fitness studio or book private dining in the Sky Club.
In order to showcase the future neighborhood and interact with the amenities package, the NEXUS sales center will include an augmented reality experience produced by Z-Axon and made possible using Microsoft’s HoloLens technology, which pairs the physical environment up with digital holograms. When the sales center opens in early March, prospective buyers will be able to visualize the neighborhood of the future, with the NEXUS scale model providing a physical anchor around which a virtual cityscape is formed.
The scale model and the HoloLens experience will be introduced during the State of Downtown event.
“It feels like you’re a giant walking through a vertical village — the East Village, that is,” Chan says. “It certainly brings into perspective the burgeoning community and showcases how NEXUS is front and center amongst a growing skyline.”
