Image courtesy of SpaceForm
Spotlight
May 8, 2025
SpaceForm creates an immersive digital twin for EDGE Liverpool Street
There’s a dilemma at the heart of every architectural project.
Years of time, effort, and money must be invested up front, yet not a single person working on the venture can ever really know how it will feel to walk through the door and stand inside the building until it’s completed.
With the financial stakes so high, it would be risky to accept on faith that the final build will be just as the designer imagined.
To mitigate this, architects have always relied on visualization as a means of peering into the future—first through pen and paper drawings, then 3D renderings that communicate the design intent.
Years of time, effort, and money must be invested up front, yet not a single person working on the venture can ever really know how it will feel to walk through the door and stand inside the building until it’s completed.
With the financial stakes so high, it would be risky to accept on faith that the final build will be just as the designer imagined.
To mitigate this, architects have always relied on visualization as a means of peering into the future—first through pen and paper drawings, then 3D renderings that communicate the design intent.
Those 3D renderings have evolved from static imagery to fully interactive digital models that can be explored in a real-time environment—giving as close to the experience of actually standing in the finished building as you can get.
The real-estate industry is gradually waking up to the power of these digital twins when it comes to selling the vision of as-yet unbuilt property to stakeholders and potential buyers. However, large pockets of the sector still don't know you can use game engine technology to create powerful digital twins like these.
That’s where SpaceForm comes in.
SpaceForm provides an Unreal Engine-powered platform that enables non-technical real estate teams to transform architectural designs into compelling interactive environments, bridging the gap between design data and full immersive twin.
They're out to prove that you can take visualization to another level of complexity and deliver a high-end, immersive experience—without a huge budget or team.
The SpaceForm team has helped developers around the globe create sophisticated digital twins for everything from luxury real estate to public parks. In this article, we’ll take a look at one of their recent high-profile projects: EDGE Liverpool Street in London.
The real-estate industry is gradually waking up to the power of these digital twins when it comes to selling the vision of as-yet unbuilt property to stakeholders and potential buyers. However, large pockets of the sector still don't know you can use game engine technology to create powerful digital twins like these.
That’s where SpaceForm comes in.
SpaceForm provides an Unreal Engine-powered platform that enables non-technical real estate teams to transform architectural designs into compelling interactive environments, bridging the gap between design data and full immersive twin.
They're out to prove that you can take visualization to another level of complexity and deliver a high-end, immersive experience—without a huge budget or team.
The SpaceForm team has helped developers around the globe create sophisticated digital twins for everything from luxury real estate to public parks. In this article, we’ll take a look at one of their recent high-profile projects: EDGE Liverpool Street in London.
Courtesy of SpaceForm
Courtesy of SpaceForm
Courtesy of SpaceForm
Courtesy of SpaceForm
Courtesy of SpaceForm
Courtesy of SpaceForm
Courtesy of SpaceForm
EDGE Liverpool Street: A digital twin for commercial real estate
EDGE Liverpool Street is a pioneering zero-carbon office building located a few minutes’ walk from Liverpool Street Station in central London, due for completion in 2029.International developer EDGE and their joint venture partner Mitsui Fudosan wanted a fully explorable, interactive digital twin that could be updated at any point as the design progressed.
The aim was to showcase the building to investors, with a view to pre-leasing the 20 floors in a new dedicated marketing suite for in-person meetings. The digital twin can also be experienced online through Pixel Streaming for remote sales conversations.
Whether visitors are on-site or remote, the digital replica of the building is primarily used to provide virtual tours of the project, highlighting all the key views and areas the client wants to focus on.
These tours can be either linear or non-linear, with participants exploring the project via a simple-to-use interface. In the immersive on-site sales center, tour goers navigate using an Xbox controller. “We’ve found this to be the simplest control mechanism for non-tech teams to get to grips with quickly,” explains Jan Maarten Heuff, Co-Founder and CEO at SpaceForm.
At any point, the presenter can adjust the time of day, seasons, and even the weather—all essential to understanding the specifics of leasing a particular space and how it feels to be in it at different times and in a range of conditions.
The context of the surrounding area is an important part of the story when it comes to articulating exactly how it would feel to be based in EDGE Liverpool Street: the nearby shops, transport links, and amenities.
To provide this, the EDGE Liverpool Street digital twin incorporates Google Earth data via Cesium to create a realistic full-city setting, enhancing the context of the building's location. The team also integrated high-resolution models for key buildings directly surrounding the site.
Courtesy of SpaceForm
“This allows us to display nearby stations, bus stops, coffee shops, gyms, schools, or any other relevant locations, along with their associated walking times and distances,” says Heuff.
That means the user can access any of the 20 floors and take in photorealistic, accurate views from each window, providing an authentic sense of the surrounding cityscape.
That means the user can access any of the 20 floors and take in photorealistic, accurate views from each window, providing an authentic sense of the surrounding cityscape.
Customized visualization in a contextual setting
Courtesy of SpaceForm
When you’re trying to sell unbuilt commercial real estate, any way you can help the client visualize themselves sitting there at their desk is a powerful tool in your arsenal.
The EDGE Liverpool Street digital twin can be quickly customized to match the prospective tenant's company branding, making it easier for them to envision their business within the space.
“We can output custom animations, once the scenes are set up, in a few hours,” says Heuff. “That would have taken days or even weeks of render time in traditional visualization workflows.”
The EDGE Liverpool Street digital twin can be quickly customized to match the prospective tenant's company branding, making it easier for them to envision their business within the space.
“We can output custom animations, once the scenes are set up, in a few hours,” says Heuff. “That would have taken days or even weeks of render time in traditional visualization workflows.”
Courtesy of SpaceForm
The ability to make these kinds of rapid changes is one of the powerful benefits that using real-time technology bestows upon architectural visualizers.
Not all real-time tools are created equal, however, and Heuff is clear that Unreal Engine is his preferred option for developing digital twins of this quality.
“Unparalleled real-time photorealism makes it the only choice to do this kind of project,” he says. “Just the raw power of Unreal to handle and render scenes that are sometimes on par in terms of detail and complexity with what we could have achieved with offline renders.”
He also notes that Datasmith is key to speeding up and simplifying the process of bringing design data into the engine, and gives a special mention to Nanite, Unreal Engine’s virtualized geometry system.
“Nanite is essential when dealing with large amounts of 3D design data,” Heuff explains. “It means we don’t have to worry as much about poly counts.”
Lighting is another area in which the team relies on Unreal Engine to deliver. “Lumen has been a game changer for lighting complex scenes quickly,” Heuff says. “It saves us days when lighting a whole building interior—especially on this project that makes use of a lot of natural light.”
Lumen is Unreal Engine 5's fully dynamic global illumination and reflections system. It provides infinite diffuse bounces, which are important in scenes with bright diffuse materials—like the white paint often used in office buildings.
Not all real-time tools are created equal, however, and Heuff is clear that Unreal Engine is his preferred option for developing digital twins of this quality.
“Unparalleled real-time photorealism makes it the only choice to do this kind of project,” he says. “Just the raw power of Unreal to handle and render scenes that are sometimes on par in terms of detail and complexity with what we could have achieved with offline renders.”
He also notes that Datasmith is key to speeding up and simplifying the process of bringing design data into the engine, and gives a special mention to Nanite, Unreal Engine’s virtualized geometry system.
“Nanite is essential when dealing with large amounts of 3D design data,” Heuff explains. “It means we don’t have to worry as much about poly counts.”
Lighting is another area in which the team relies on Unreal Engine to deliver. “Lumen has been a game changer for lighting complex scenes quickly,” Heuff says. “It saves us days when lighting a whole building interior—especially on this project that makes use of a lot of natural light.”
Lumen is Unreal Engine 5's fully dynamic global illumination and reflections system. It provides infinite diffuse bounces, which are important in scenes with bright diffuse materials—like the white paint often used in office buildings.
How SpaceForm creates digital twins using UE
The process of creating a digital twin with SpaceForm begins by exporting geometry, materials, and BIM data (where applicable) from Revit or Rhino to Unreal Engine via a custom-built plugin made in Unreal Engine.
This plugin converts and optimizes the Revit/Rhino or Datasmith files, then organizes the geometry before it’s resaved and pushed through to the engine.
It then packages the project, uploads it to Amazon S3 and shares a link with the client.
Once the model has been approved by the stakeholders, the artists can import the optimized file to their DCC of choice and start laying out furniture or model/remodel any required changes.
Next, Datasmith is used to bring all the stakeholder’s work into the Unreal Engine project. Here, it’s possible to use Dataprep or Unreal Engine’s tools for asset optimization and material replacements.
SpaceForm has also built a scene system that enables clients to create their own story around a building. Any view, any time of day and motion type (fly, walk, or orbit) can be saved and named to be accessed in the scene selection.
This gives non-technical users a simple ‘next/ back’ control interface—or they can open up a selection screen to jump to any other scene.
This plugin converts and optimizes the Revit/Rhino or Datasmith files, then organizes the geometry before it’s resaved and pushed through to the engine.
It then packages the project, uploads it to Amazon S3 and shares a link with the client.
Once the model has been approved by the stakeholders, the artists can import the optimized file to their DCC of choice and start laying out furniture or model/remodel any required changes.
Next, Datasmith is used to bring all the stakeholder’s work into the Unreal Engine project. Here, it’s possible to use Dataprep or Unreal Engine’s tools for asset optimization and material replacements.
SpaceForm has also built a scene system that enables clients to create their own story around a building. Any view, any time of day and motion type (fly, walk, or orbit) can be saved and named to be accessed in the scene selection.
This gives non-technical users a simple ‘next/ back’ control interface—or they can open up a selection screen to jump to any other scene.
Just the beginning for digital twins in real estate
Courtesy of SpaceForm
Heuff reports that potential tenants have had an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the EDGE Liverpool Street digital twin so far. “We’re on the third meeting with one City of London firm that’s looking to relocate and take a sizable number of floors,” he says.
The digital twin is playing an integral role in those discussions as the firm looks at different branding options around the site. “Showing them the exact floors, views, time of day, and instant branding options is a game changer,” explains Heuff.
It’s too early to provide tangible data on the impact the EDGE Liverpool Street digital twin has had on sales—the project has only been live for a matter of weeks. But if previous projects are anything to go by, that impact will be significant.
“In another central London commercial project, our client saw 50% faster sales as a direct result of being able to walk a tenant around the virtual site,” says Heuff.
Today, it’s generally the early adopters who are using immersive digital twins for real estate—and that tends to be for bigger scale projects.
The use case for mass market real-estate is clear, however, and the popularity of digital twins seen on existing projects proves that this means of exploring building designs is highly appealing to end customers.
“It's a huge opportunity, and the industry must respond,” says Heuff. “We can envision the market expanding in all directions: agencies building custom twins for one-off use cases, architects visioning their designs in Twinmotion and sharing them with clients—and then real-estate developers using the power of Unreal to connect with new customers, which is where SpaceForm comes in.”
The digital twin is playing an integral role in those discussions as the firm looks at different branding options around the site. “Showing them the exact floors, views, time of day, and instant branding options is a game changer,” explains Heuff.
It’s too early to provide tangible data on the impact the EDGE Liverpool Street digital twin has had on sales—the project has only been live for a matter of weeks. But if previous projects are anything to go by, that impact will be significant.
“In another central London commercial project, our client saw 50% faster sales as a direct result of being able to walk a tenant around the virtual site,” says Heuff.
Today, it’s generally the early adopters who are using immersive digital twins for real estate—and that tends to be for bigger scale projects.
The use case for mass market real-estate is clear, however, and the popularity of digital twins seen on existing projects proves that this means of exploring building designs is highly appealing to end customers.
“It's a huge opportunity, and the industry must respond,” says Heuff. “We can envision the market expanding in all directions: agencies building custom twins for one-off use cases, architects visioning their designs in Twinmotion and sharing them with clients—and then real-estate developers using the power of Unreal to connect with new customers, which is where SpaceForm comes in.”