PINITO — When the exhibition
had to go virtual.

Physical models are expensive, time-consuming, and impossible during a pandemic.

Every semester, architecture students at the Art University of Isfahan spent significant time and money building physical scale models for their final presentations — called "jojman." Beyond the cost, the process was stressful and left little room for iteration.

When COVID hit, that problem became critical. There was no physical space, no way to gather, and no platform to replace the experience — including the peer feedback and professor critique that made jojman valuable in the first place.

It started with AR.

Before COVID, we built a mobile AR app using Unity and Vuforia that let students point their phone at a drawing and see their 3D model appear on top of it in real scale. Professors and students could walk around it, inspect it, and discuss it — no physical model needed.

This was the seed of what became PINITO.

Early AR prototype (2019) — 3D architectural models overlaid on hand drawings using Vuforia. Right: a live demo with faculty members.

A virtual building, on the web, accessible from any device.

PINITO is a web-based VR exhibition platform built around a 3D model of the Art University of Isfahan. Students upload their projects — drawings, renders, videos, 3D models — and visitors can walk through the virtual building and experience the work as if they were there in person.

It was designed with two separate spaces: a public-facing exhibition for anyone to browse, and a private communication portal for student-teacher critique and peer feedback — replicating the social dynamics of a real jojman.

Walking through an exhibition that never closed.

Inside PINITO, visitors navigate the virtual halls of the university, stop at student project displays on the walls, click through to see full project details, and leave feedback. The spatial metaphor made it immediately intuitive — it felt like being there.

Left: a visitor exploring PINITO using an Oculus headset. Right: the virtual exhibition space with student projects displayed on the walls.

Two portals, two different needs.

Designed for every screen.

The project portal was built to work seamlessly across desktop and mobile. Students could manage their uploads, view feedback from professors, and track how many people had visited their work — all from the same interface.

The responsive design was a deliberate decision: not everyone had access to a laptop, and the platform needed to reach every student equally.

The PINITO project portal — responsive across desktop and mobile.

The public exhibition gallery — visitors browse student projects, click through to full project pages, and leave comments.

Design lead, researcher, and the bridge between team and university.

This was my first web VR project. I had previously worked on mobile apps and AR, but leading the design of a platform at this scale — under time pressure, with a team of 8 and university stakeholders — was new territory.

From a sketch on a whiteboard to a university-wide platform.

Web-first VR, built to run in any browser.

750 users. 3 departments. One platform that kept education going.

PINITO gave students a way to share their work during the most disruptive period in the university's recent history. But beyond COVID, it demonstrated that digital exhibition spaces could offer something physical ones couldn't — accessibility, reach, and a permanent archive of student work.