Gaudí’s Mixed Reality Workshop

Gaudí’s Mixed Reality Workshop is a new experiential technology format developed by Mediapro Xperiences to transform complex cultural and architectural knowledge into a large-scale, interactive and intuitive Mixed Reality experience designed for audiences of all ages and backgrounds.

Created as the technological centrepiece of Gaudí Code: The Untold Experience, the Workshop allows up to 40 visitors to enter the same physical-digital environment simultaneously, move freely through approximately 200 m² and explore Antoni Gaudí’s creative methods through eight interactive XR installations.

The core idea was not to explain Gaudí’s working methods through text or passive interpretation, but to let visitors discover them for themselves. We wanted people to feel as if they had entered Gaudí’s workshop: experimenting, playing, testing, touching and understanding through action. Visitors manipulate geometry, experiment with structures, interact with physical prototypes, surfaces, furniture and models, and discover how Gaudí used engineering, mathematics, materials and the observation of nature to imagine, test and create his architecture.

This made interactivity the central design principle of the experience. Each installation turns a complex architectural or geometric concept into an intuitive action. Visitors can generate mathematical curves through a digital mechanical drawing system, manipulate ruled surfaces, explore architectural modulation, recreate Gaudí’s use of light and shadow, and physically alter different types of arches to understand their structural behaviour. The aim is that learning happens through discovery rather than instruction.

Technology is therefore not an added layer placed on top of the experience; it is embedded in the act of discovery itself. Our objective was to make it feel as invisible and organic as possible. Visitors do not use controllers. Interaction is based primarily on hand tracking, allowing them to pinch, grab, push, turn and manipulate virtual elements naturally. Physical objects are synchronised with their digital representations, so visitors can touch real elements while additional layers of information, animation and behaviour appear around them.

The headset becomes, in effect, a decoder of an amplified layer of reality. Visitors do not only see and interact with their own digital layer; through spectator mode, they can also perceive how other visitors are interacting with theirs. This transforms the Workshop from a collection of individual headset experiences into a shared mixed-reality environment. Seeing other people’s digital actions reinforces presence, curiosity and social interaction, while making the invisible digital world feel collectively inhabited.

The technological challenge was considerable: all visitors need to see digital content aligned with the same physical objects in precisely the same position. To achieve this, the system combines PICO Shared Spatial Anchors with a secondary visual-recognition layer using Unity Inference Engine. If spatial accuracy deteriorates, the visual-recognition system supports recalibration, while tracking quality is monitored in real time.

At the core of the Workshop is a framework developed specifically for this large-scale, multi-user Mixed Reality environment. Built in Unity 6, it manages real-time synchronisation between PICO 4 Ultra Enterprise headsets and a dedicated local server, coordinating visitor positions, station states, interactions, audio, video and shared timing across the entire experience.

What makes the application distinctive is the combination of scale, physical scenography, multi-user interaction and operational robustness. This is not an individual headset experience isolated from its surroundings: up to 40 people inhabit the same physical-digital space, while digital content remains connected to real objects, furniture and architecture.

The system was designed as a real visitor operation rather than a technology demonstration. It must run continuously seven days a week, manage high visitor throughput and adapt to future international venues. A degraded offline mode allows experiences to continue locally if network connectivity is interrupted, while a web-based control dashboard allows operators to monitor headset positions, tracking quality, batteries, visitor flows and station status in real time.

Accessibility and scalability were equally important. The system supports tablets alongside headsets, multilingual content in up to six languages and a proprietary CMS that allows content, voice-over, models and station timing to be managed centrally.
Gaudí’s Mixed Reality Workshop demonstrates how experiential technology can move beyond spectacle. Visitors are not told how Gaudí worked, they discover it by doing. By making the technology almost disappear, the Workshop turns Mixed Reality into an intuitive tool for experimentation, play, shared discovery and understanding.