The PFAFF-Areal Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH Kaiserslautern (PEG) and the high-tech XR startup ZREALITY are jointly going disruptive ways in the marketing of real estate projects. The aim of the project is to market space on the well-known Pfaff site in Kaiserslautern, which formerly housed the Pfaff sewing machine factory. The worldwide unique solution allows potential investors and in the future also citizens to experience the Pfaff quarter in 3D today with their smartphones or VR glasses as it might look in a few years.
If you talk to people in Kaiserslautern about Pfaff sewing machines, you will quickly come across the company’s currently unused industrial site. The site is centrally located in Kaiserslautern between the city centre and the university campus and is the ideal location for a highly innovative development concept initiated by the city of Kaiserslautern. The aim is to build a quarter that combines work, life, science and innovation in a unique way and at the same time combines modernity with the preservation of old buildings and architecture.
The marketing of the site has already begun and the first investors have been won. In order to give even more investors the opportunity to get an impression of the development concept and the areas, the city of Kaiserslautern, together with the PEG and the Wirtschaftsförderung Kaiserslautern (WfK) (Economic Development of Kaiserslautern), is trying something new. In the spirit of “Herzlich Digital”, the city initiative for digitisation in Kaiserslautern, the local high-tech start-up ZREALITY GmbH was commissioned to present the development of the Pfaff quarter in Virtual (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). ZREALITY is the market leader for virtual solutions and has developed a unique technology to bring virtual worlds to smartphones, tablets, PCs and data glasses. ZREALITY recently won the Weconomy Startup Award and counts global customers such as BASF, but also local companies from Kaiserslautern such as Gebrüder Pfeiffer among its customers.
The aim of the VR/AR solution is to market the site to investors. Investors can already experience a large part of the site today and get an impression of the planned structure, development and innovation concepts in the areas of mobility, technology, work or life. The so-called „Pfaff and Stadtachse“ were visualized for this purpose. As a user, you can walk virtually through the site and get an impression of what it might look like in the future. Already today, investors present their planned buildings and science institutes there. The area is traffic-calmed and autonomous vehicles drive on the roads. There are extensive green spaces and places for leisure activities. Innovative concepts such as solar thermal energy and green facades are on display. Investors now have the opportunity to integrate their own construction plans into open spaces and to coordinate the construction plans with the PEG at an early stage.
Access is very easy for the user. He can do this very easily with his smartphone and enter the site via a “portal”. “This can be imagined as a passage to another world as in the film Stargate,” says Michael Neidhöfer, Managing Director of ZREALITY. “With a smartphone app, anyone can open a portal at home in the living room and then enter the site.” At the same time, you can also simply view the terrain in a 3D application on the PEG website. If you have VR glasses, you can even dive directly into the world and stroll across the site. “This is only possible with our Sphere software, with which we are uniquely positioned worldwide,” says Michael Neidhöfer. “Our customers can later adapt the site themselves via a content management system and reach a maximum number of users, you’re not limited to one pair of VR glasses”.
“For us, the solution is an important step towards marketing space to investors,” says Dr. Stefan Kremer, one of the managing directors of PEG. “Such a solution is unique in the world and we are planning its use and continuous expansion. At present, the solution only shows part of the entire site and many buildings have not yet been planned and visualized. In the future, however, one can also imagine offering the interiors of new office buildings to potential tenants even before the buildings have already been completed. The tenant then enters a fully furnished building and chooses the perfect location. This simply creates undreamt-of possibilities and the VR/AR technology is fantastic. We can also get early feedback from citizens who want to get an impression of a possible future of the site,” says Dr. Stefan Kremer.
The launch for the presentation of the solution is ExpoReal, the largest real estate trade fair in Germany, which will take place in Munich on 7-9 October.
Read the full press article of PEG here.