This article is the fifth in a series focusing on the Architecture of the Metaverse. ArchDaily has collaborated with John Marx, AIA, the founding design principal and Chief Artistic Officer of Form4 Architecture, to bring you monthly articles that seek to define the Metaverse, convey the potential of this new realm as well as understand its constraints.
Science fiction writers inspire us with bold and provocative visions of the future. Huxley, Orwell, Assimov, and Bradbury easily come to mind. They have imagined great advances in technology and oftentimes predicted shifts in social structure that were a result of the human need to open Pandora's Box. A large part of the charm and allure of science fiction is the bold audacity of some of these predictions. They seem to defy the laws of nature and science, and then, faster than you might have thought, the spectrum of human inventiveness makes it so.
Personal Metaverse Immersion Devices, PMIDs are a major part of a quixotic wonderland of progress. The recent unveiling of a range of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) headsets has added another significant milestone in the advance of technology. Apple's AR/VR Hybrid is one such device that cleverly addresses some of the awkward inconveniences of standalone AR and VR devices.
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Navigating the Metaverse with your AI ConciergeFirst, let's talk about the origins of AR and VR experiences.
A World Viewed through Augmented Reality
AR glasses provide a digitally enhanced visual experience of reality. While you remain firmly rooted in a physical setting, a rich amount of data and imagery can be layered between your eyes and physical objects. This imagery can be interactive and participatory if your glasses can follow the movement of your eyes, hands, or fingers. Objects, maps, diagrams, photos, and controls can become available for your use. You can access data, images, and systems that appear.
- Upsides: Retaining a sense of "being" in the real world. An AR experience allows you to walk freely in the physical world. Accessing data, the web, imagery, and 3D objects in real-time.
- Downsides: Current technology makes it difficult to display solid objects when you are outside. It is difficult to transport to alternative virtual spaces that are not tied to your current physical location.
Additionally, AR can be experienced by projecting on, or emitting images from, physical surfaces. Imagine a building that is a white box, with a few well-placed windows. Thru projection mapping that building can change dramatically in an infinite number of ways. Tuscan one moment, French villa the next, or a rock cave. This is especially effective with interior space, the "white box" instead of the "black box".
Experiencing Life via Virtual Reality
VR is a completely immersive experience where you can experience a completely 3D world contained within the confines of the six inches around your eyes. Your actual physical context is made irrelevant and cannot be experienced directly.
- Upsides: Complete control of the user experience. High-definition experiences. The ability to curate and customize experiences for each individual user.
- Downsides: Isolation from reality. Physical movement is constrained and often dangerous.
When Augmented Reality Meets Virtual Reality
What Apple's hybrid does is to combine many of the positive features of both systems, while mitigating many of the negatives. From a user experience standpoint, when you put on Vision Pro goggles you will see a highly accurate and enhanced version of the physical space around you, but in a very clever technological twist, you are experiencing this thru the hardware of VR. The Vision Pro's cameras create a version of your physical context by utilizing:
"A pair of high-resolution cameras transmit over one billion pixels per second to the displays so you can see the world around you clearly. The system also helps deliver precise head and hand tracking and real‑time 3D mapping, all while understanding your hand gestures from a wide range of positions", explains Apple's Website.
Apple has also made a very humanizing gesture by providing an outward real-time video display of your eyes, giving those around you a sense of your existence thru "the portals to your soul".
Where this matters is that in one piece of hardware, you can craft both an AR and a VR experience. While the current focus seems to be on AR, the power of this hardware to make a significantly more enjoyable VR experience is formidable. The sophistication of voice, hand, and eye control will allow a much richer ability to navigate virtual worlds, with the ability to transition easily back into an augmented reality world. Apple's initial hybrid rollout, while a significant step forward, represents the first phase of a long series of technological advances needed to fully support the Metaverse. This is primarily due to Apple's focus on AR, by layering data and connectivity over reality. Rather than adding box screen versions of the people you are meeting with, the Metaverse will be a place where a 3D representation of your meeting colleague will appear to inhabit your space with you in a highly photorealistic way. The downside of this technology with we may have a difficult time determining the real from the virtual.
AR/VR and Architecture
There are two places worth noting, of many, where AR/VR will influence architecture, first is the potential to create "white canvas" spaces within a building that can be enhanced by AR/VR headsets. These spaces can become a common ground where users can come together physically and virtually and enjoy the same experience. These spaces will need to physically be more generic, allowing AR/VR to provide character.
Secondly, in terms of both AR and VR, architects will have the opportunity to create "experiences" in addition to normative notions of "space". This shift can have a profound effect on the practice of architecture. Currently, we program buildings to facilitate several activities, but as buildings are traditionally static, we have not generally focused on experience design, which can change within a space. AR/VR Hybrid headsets allow the character and mood of a space to change dramatically from moment to moment. Your meeting or event can appear to start in Venice and end on a mountaintop.
Metaverse Thrives on Hybrid Models
AR glasses alone cannot create the level of "reality" needed to make an experience engaging or immersive. Hybrid AR/VR devices are critical to the development of the Metaverse in the sense that the overlap between the virtual and the real world is where the Metaverse lies. This space will need vibrant content to engage users to immerse themselves fully. Architects are uniquely trained to create bold visions to equal that of science fiction writers, to craft worlds that inspire and entice users to explore what the future might offer.
Advances in technology disrupt existing social norms. Science fiction writers may generally prefer the dystopian to the utopian, whereas reality most often falls in between. As clever as we might be at predicting cultural shifts each advance in technology will inevitably result in unintended consequences. The challenge is to create, react and contribute to these new worlds in humane, thoughtful, and caring ways...... humanity is at its best when we are adaptive, diverse, and hungry.
“Personal Metaverse Immersion Devices: Unlocking the Potential of AR and VR” is written by architect John Marx, AIA, the founding design principal and Chief Artistic Officer of Form4 Architecture, an award-winning San Francisco - based firm that designs prominent buildings, campuses, and interiors for Bay Area tech companies such as Google and Facebook, laboratories for life-science clients, and workplaces for numerous other companies. In 2000-2007, Marx taught a course on the topic of placemaking in cyberspace at the University of California, Berkley and in 2020 he designed his first project in the Metaverse for Burning Man: The Museum of No Spectators. The following year, John Marx led a design team charged with creating a $500B portal to the Metaverse.
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on July 10, 2023.
