Courtesy Morpholio *Morpholio's AR display of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair.*

Architects often extend their design skills beyond buildings. They create bespoke fixtures and custom furnishings, shaping how occupants will inhabit their built spaces. To our fortune, some of these pieces go on to become design icons available on the commercial market. Now with augmented reality (AR), users can place and experience several of these pieces into their current surroundings or onto mood boards.

In a collaboration with global design firm Knoll, the seven-person team of New York–based design studio and software developer Morpholio and Chico, Calif.–based visualization studio Theia Interactive have harnessed AR technology and Apple’s new USDZ 3D file format, which lets developers create models for AR, to enable iPad users to inspect, say, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair, down to the sheen of its leather upholstery and polish of its chrome frame, in their own space. The AR collection also includes pieces by Eero Saarinen, Warren Platner, Marcel Breuer, David Adjaye, Hon. FAIA, according to a press release.