The Gates 20th Anniversary project
Tools
Unreal Engine
Blender
Unity
Description
Dirt Empire's Gates 20th Anniversary project brought Christo and Jeanne-Claude's 2005 Central Park installation back through AR — a series of experiences shown at The Shed and in the park for retrospective audiences. I worked as 3D artist build the gates frabric simulations, the 3D map, and a VR previs for interal team use.
In the team, I built a VR previs showing how The Gates would look walking through the actual park pathways. That previs wasn't part of the public exhibition, but it was used heavily in internal planning and pitch discussions. On the exhibited side, I worked with the Art Director on the gate fabric animation — animating the saffron fabric to replicate how it actually moved over the structures — and helped model the interactive AR map at The Shed.
Pipeline
Build early-stage VR previs to validate pathway behavior and spatial deployment logic.
Use previs outputs in internal review and pitch communication cycles.
Develop final-use assets with Art Director collaboration for fabric animation and AR map integration.
Package archival 360 materials and render references into final interactive map support.
the VR Previs I created What I built
VR previs package for early project planning and pitch communication.
Final-use gate fabric animation assets developed with art-direction collaboration.
Interactive AR map modeling support for The Shed presentation.
Challenge
The fabric simulation had to feel right historically — not just technically believable, but accurate to how that specific saffron fabric moved in open air over a 16-foot structure. That took more reference work than I expected.
The VR previs ended up being the main visual communication tool for early planning. The fabric animation and AR map were in the final exhibited experience.
the VR Previs I created 
