What Will Our Virtual Reality Be? – Metropolis – Metropolis Magazine

Though the metaverse often loosely mimics the organizational mores established by the physical world, the buildings themselves routinely deviate from what might be considered feasible real-world design. In the metaverse, gravity doesnt exist, nor do material constraints. Things like structure, materiality, and cost, for that matter, all go out the window, says Leon Rost, a principal at Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), who has worked on a handful of virtual projects for clients. This lack of stylistic constraint has attracted architects who are interested in pushing the formal boundaries of what space can look like. BIG partnered with UNStudio to develop a virtual meeting platform called SpaceForm, where people can collaborate in real time inside futuristic rooms featuring holographic tables that display 3D renderings and data visualizations. Beneville, meanwhile, has built hovering performance stages for clients like iHeartRadio that float in outer space like satellites. Jose Sanchez, a professor of architecture at the University of Michigan Taubman College who designs highly immersive multiplayer videogames through his studio Plethora Project, is designing a videogame where collectives of players can build their own structures that drip in greenery. From a design standpoint, you have to think very differently, because the samerules dont apply in the virtual world as they do in the physical world, Rost says.

In a recent project, Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg of Space Popular, an architecture studio based in Spain and London, created a virtual gallery for the Spanish organization Fundacin Arquia modeled on the layout of Barcelona. Digital avatars can wander through seemingly endless labyrinths of sunrise-hued rooms whose architectural features look as if they were pulled from an M.C. Escher drawing. The rooms were designed with a misty softness that Lesmes says is helpful for loading times and for easing screen-addled eyes into a new environment. Lighting is incredibly important; it can make a virtual space feel a lot better, she says.

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What Will Our Virtual Reality Be? - Metropolis - Metropolis Magazine