After exploring Hudec’s story and our design process,
I'd like to share some final reflections—on the key strategies we used to build immersion,
and what this journey has come to mean for us.
When we started designing this experience, we knew we didn't want it to feel distant or didactic.
We wanted users to feel as if they were truly stepping into an Architectural Designer’s world—seeing what he saw, hearing what he heard, and carrying fragments of his memory with them.
To build that kind of immersion, we grounded every part of the story in real historical sources—archival footage, handwritten letters, and even fragments of Hudec’s own documents.
We reconstructed spaces like his office carefully, and layered small visual cues—like glowing objects and shifting highlights—to guide users intuitively through the journey, without breaking their sense of discovery.
So here, our project is about creating a mobile-first, site-specific journey— making history accessible not in a textbook, not behind glass, but out here, in the streets of the city.
Through playable heritage elements—like interactive clues, glowing objects, and spatial exploration—we invite users not just to observe, but to actively uncover Hudec’s story.
One of the ways we tried to collapse the distance between past and present was through our visual and sonic atmosphere.
When users entered the experience, they were immediately enveloped in a vintage sepia filter, paired with old typewriter fonts and ambient music— transporting them into the 1930s without needing to explain a word.
And when the filter faded, as users returned to modern-day Shanghai, there was a sudden, almost bittersweet rupture— a reminder that even though the story belongs to the past, it still leaves some traces in our city today.
We also wanted to explore other ways of intergrating the MR with physical world. That’s why we designed a replica of Hudec’s fake passport—a physical object that every participant holds during Scene 1. As users walk through the migration journey, the passport becomes a narrative anchor. Unlike watching a documentary on a museum screen, here you are part of the story—walking on foot, flipping pages, holding the same object Hudec once might have carried.
And when the MR experience ends, you're left standing in front of the real Truelight Building—still holding that passport. No AR overlay, no visual effects—just you, the building, and this small passport reminder of your time-traveling journey.