Get A Tour Of A Halifax Museum Or Gallery From The Comfort Of Home
HALIFAX – If you’ve been meaning to check out the Maud Lewis exhibition at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, well you can now do it from the comfort of your couch, wherever you are in the world.
Since Covid-19 forced museums, galleries, schools, universities and tourism sites to close, Smarter Spaces, a space planning consultancy firm, has turned to making 3D virtual tours of those buildings. By doing so, the company hopes to promote learning and encourage future visits.
That’s a bit of a pivot from the company’s usual clientele: developers, landlords and institutions.
“We’re one of the fortunate companies through this whole thing that the unique angle of vacant buildings allowed us to continue, and with the support of different businesses and other entrepreneurs, still push projects forward,” said founder and principal Colin Gillis.
He said the team brainstormed the idea after Premier Stephen McNeil declared a state of emergency in Nova Scotia.
“We quickly realized that once things calm down a little bit that we have an awful lot of vacant buildings where there are no people, which really doesn’t happen any other time,” he said. “As a team, we came up with the idea, what about looking at museums and cultural sites and tourism, and what we can do to help bring Nova Scotia to the world. It’s a unique situation where we have empty cultural sites but we also have a ton of audience that is stuck at home.”
The company hopes to cover Atlantic Canada with its new service, once borders between the provinces reopen.
Usually, Smarter Spaces uses its hand-held 3D scanning technology to provide tours of buildings under construction to developers, landlords, institutions and universities. For instance, it scanned Hospice Halifax’s building before the drywall and ceiling were put on, so in the future, the images can help in maintenance or if there’s a leak.
The company is still doing some of this work, thanks to support from its existing clients, which include Acadia University, Armco Capital and Page Property Management. But there’s not much new work coming from its traditional revenue streams.
More of the company’s work in the past month has been in the cultural and educational space. With many cultural organizations currently cash strapped, Gillis said companies that are doing well can sponsor the 3D tours. BMO sponsored the virtual tour for the Maud Lewis exhibition
Smarter Spaces also touts its offering as a tool to help universities and schools recruit.
For example, the scan of Sacred Heart School in Halifax will be used to create a virtual tour for prospective students and parents. The school had considered doing so before the pandemic but has fast-tracked it. Gillis said it took a day and a quarter to scan the whole school ground.
Smarter Spaces uses a combination of platforms, including Matterport, a commonly used virtual tour platform in the real estate sector. But because Matterport has some limitations, Smarter Spaces modified existing technology to fit its needs, including scanning very large outdoor spaces.
The technology also allows Smarter Spaces to integrate e-commerce in the tour, so people can buy as they browse. It also has virtual reality capabilities.
So if you’re thinking of checking out Acadia University, for example, you can view the floor plan, pick a building, and explore that space.
“If you’re in the Athletic Centre, you can have the ability to look at the gym, the pool, the football field,” Gillis said.
Gillis said the increased interest in virtual tours hasn’t led to an expansion of the eight-person team yet, “but we’re hoping it does.”
“We have our team at about 95 percent, so we’ll see what happens in the next six weeks or so, and how things progress,” he said.