Architecting the Metaverse

Ultimate Quest: What Value Can Architects Bring to the Metaverse？

-Architect’s Identity Crisis in the Digital Economy

Architects already face the identity crisis in the physical world. We used to be the master builder, knowing all the knowledge and techniques of construction. However, in the modern industrial society, many majors like structure, mechanical, electricity, budget, construction management have been separated from architecture discipline, the remaining part is mostly form-making, visualization, collaboration, and so on, we are lack core technology.

“Architecture is a profession that takes an enormous amount of time. The least architectural effort takes at least four or five or six years, and that speed is really too slow for the revolutions that are taking place.” Said by Rem Koolhas, the Pritzker Prize-winning Dutch architect, pointed the shortcoming of the profession, how it could adapt to the changing social and technical climates of today. Technology is advancing, and tech “outsiders” are aiming to refactor or revolutionize the AEC industry. From industry to academia, we need to change to adapt.

Metaverse is a new playground that architects could take part in together with other stakeholders. If we are competing against game designers or developers, what extra value can we bring to the game?

-Architect as the Bridge Between the Physical and Virtual World

For centuries, architects are leading the construction of physical worlds. Acting as the project manager to collaborate with all the disciplines to deliver projects to the end-users, we have a comprehensive understanding of the projects, while the other consultants are more likely to be familiar with only part of the whole picture.

With the trend of creating Digital Twin in the practice in the AEC industry, architects can act as the bridge between the physical and virtual world. According to Autodesk, “A digital twin in construction, engineering, and architecture is a dynamic, up-to-date replica of a physical asset or set of assets — whether it’s a building, a campus, a city, or a railway — that brings together design, construction, and real-time operational data. Digital twins simulate, predict, and inform decisions.” Architects could run simulations to create real-world scenarios virtually to “test drive” unbuilt buildings. A digital twin uses data from connected sensors to tell the story of a building all the way through its life cycle. From testing to use in the real world. With IoT data, we can measure specific indicators of building health and performance, like temperature and humidity. A digital twin can also augment the physical experience, imagine you have a stadium that can only host 20,000 audiences for a live concert, but you can enable millions of the users to participate in that event through digital twin while having dynamic interaction between the two.

There will be a lot of interesting applications in the metaverse that hosting digital twins or scan data like point clouds and photogrammetry of real-world places. Just be creative to utilize the assets and curate experiences and interactions for both domains.

-Social Responsibility in the Virtual World

Architects are good listeners and communicators. We begin with a lot of listening to understand what clients want and what communities want. Besides serving clients, architects tend to put the social impact and responsibility at first to serve a community as a whole.

Architecture is the manifestation and expression of culture. We try to understand a given cultural setting that involves languages, the memory of place, and lifestyles prior to conceptual design. While the metaverse is not location-specific, the users do coming from different cultural backgrounds, and we could design “vernacular” metaverses that are full of varieties and cultural inclusion.

-The Value of Architecture

This is a deep topic, and I just want to quote Rem Koolhas again: “Architecture stands with one leg in a world that’s 3,000 years old and another leg in the 21st century. This almost ballet-like stretch makes our profession surprisingly deep. You could say that we’re the last profession that has a memory, or the last profession whose roots go back 3,000 years and still demonstrates the relevance of those long roads today. Initially, I thought we were actually misplaced to deal with the present, but what we offer the present is memory.”

History is like a mirror that when we look at it we see new reflections each time. “The values of architecture” vary across history. From “Stability, Utility, Beauty” in the Roman time, to the “The seven lamps of architecture(Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Obedience, and Memory)” by Ruskin in the 19th century. From Le Corbusier’s “Toward an Architecture” that unfolded the modern architectures in the 20th century to dismiss decor and embrace pure form as the new spirit of the industrial age, to Christopher Alexander’s “Pattern Language” that heavily impacted software engineering… Do we need to define the new values of architecture in this digital age? This is an open question to my dear readers. The better we can define and implement the value of architecture, the better we can architect a great unmaterial metaverse.

Metaverse is unfolding and evolving. Dear fellow architects, are you ready?

This article was originally published on Medium and originally published on ArchDaily on September 23, 2021.

This article is part of the ArchDaily Topic: New Practices, proudly presented by PERI. PERI’s Future Products and Technologies’ department researches disruptive technologies that have the potential to change the construction industry fundamentally. The aim is to recognize the signs of the future and to help shape this future. Through a methodical approach, PERI thus expands its core competencies and acts as a clear pioneer on the market. Learn more about our monthly topics. As always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.