Ancient Olympia: Common Grounds

Web3D/AR/Immersive Experience, 2021

Ancient Olympia: Common Grounds is a collaboration between the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports and Microsoft—using AI to digitally preserve and restore this rich site for future generations by bringing its structures and cultural impact to life like never before. The whole project includes three parts: a 3D web experience that let visitors access the ancient world from everywhere, an AR mobile experience that allows visitors to bring the past back to life in the location where the glory started, and a HoloLens XR experience that brings the experience to the next immersive level.

Learn more: https://inculture.microsoft.com/arts/ancient-olympia-common-grounds/

AGENCY

Ada

ROLE

Interaction Design

Motion Design/Direction

Part1. Access the history from anywhere in the world

3D Web experience

Website: https://olympiacommongrounds.gr/explore

The Website allows visitors to experience the ancient monuments in both the curated tour and free exploration. Visitors can rotate around to freely explore each side of the monuments, zoom in to have a close look at the surprising details, and explore the monument's interior in an immersive 360 view.

On the content side, the visitors can explore the ancient Olympia game activities that happened in the monuments, the lively illustration and designed background music are aimed at bringing visitors back to the old dates.

In the end, visitors can share their thoughts about the five key values of the ancient Olympia, and see the visualized map of people who come from everywhere in the world that shared the same value — their common grounds.

Tour the monument interior in 360

The AR mobile app brings the monuments to life on a real-world scale. Visitors on site at Olympia will be able to use the app to navigate through the monuments to see them as they once stood over 2,000 years ago.

The app minimize the function to only the map for monument way finding inside the Olympia, the AR monuments with introduction and the ambient sound to set the experience to be more immersive.

Part3. Be immersive to the Legend

HoloLens Exhibition

The HoloLens exhibition invites people to walk through the digitally preserved site of Ancient Olympia. There, visitors are transported back to 173 CE, where they are surrounded by the sights, sounds, and virtual monuments of the Ancient Games. This multi-sensory tour is housed at the Athens Olympics Museum where audiences from all over the world can participate in this revolutionary experience.