Research Question

“How will we co-exist with Virtual spaces?”

Virtual worlds are already built into a 3D object (our cellphone) which displays 2D information that you can hold, or stream from a platform to a tv you mount on a wall, or it comes from the smart speaker you set on your counter. You are immersed in a world of technology and content. You have already welcomed these devices into your work environment, your hands, your homes, your privacy. Why then don’t we build for virtual experience within architecture / our homes?

The future of architects and the profession of architecture is to built the virtual along side the physical. Architects will be the connections between the virtual and the physical through designing buildings that enable immersive virtual experience that are captured and projected into the spaces we occupy and live in.

If we start designing with architecture to not only provide shelter for sleeping, eating, and bathing. But we begin to incorporate virtual space making to move architecture forward, the home can both foster and collect those meaningful moments like a family gathering, cultural ceremonies, or a get together with friends or coworkers. Then we begin to create a new third place that we can go to. (First, second, and third places are a concept of describing the different types of environments we engage in.) It’s through this third place we can build even more meaningful connections within those special moments that can be re-visited for you in the future. While also allowing users to more fully engage with content in their homes and other built forms of architecture.

Research Questions:

1. How can extended reality be used to advance architecture by increasing the scope of an architect? 2. How can we design physical environments to be connected to the virtual ones? 3. How can we feel more connected through Virtual spaces? 4. How can architecture begin to capture key memories and and re-share them in the future?

Imagine you are looking to build a new home for your family, you are considering an Extended Architect to help design both the physical home as well as designing digital twin of your home. Enabling your family to stay connected, travel and play together virtually, build memories. This type of architecture allows for the full integration of extended reality experiences to be designed and built into the home. A concert experience could be projected in your living room to be shared with friends around the world in real time. Or it could allow for you to re-live a favorite memory from your child’s past by bringing it to the present and viewing that memory with in that current time and place. It’s would be connecting family members miles away from each other to a shared space through extended reality.

Now begin to imagine a time when you are 84 years old. Your child or family members have moved you into an assisted living facility to be closer to them, but also because you have a neurodegenerative disease where you experience episodes of confusion about where and even sometimes when you are. “Dementia” is an umbrella term for a range of conditions, with a variety of causes, of which the most common is Alzheimer’s disease, accounting for 60-80% of cases. As stated in the online article “The rising prevalence of dementia is a global emergency” - August 29th 202

This care facility is also designed with Extended Architecture in mind as a therapy and method of coping or de-escalation. Virtual experience from your former home that was designed with extended architecture are enabled throughout the residence where you can relive those past moments. The house was creating a virtual photo album you can experience again. (On anniversaries of those memory, the event could pop up as a reminder. Similar to when our phones now send us anniversary reminders of when we took past photos and videos.) It’s a method of bringing that past back and reliving those important moments and stories we tell within our homes. We get to be put back into the experience within the context of a physical environment.

Apply this form of architecture to fill in those gaps between when you first built that extended home. To when you went to the extended care facility. Think about how it was used for traveling, education, recreation, entertainment, life in general. This is how we will change not only architecture but the lives of those who we design architecture for. That is what Extended Architecture can do.

Conclusion

A shift in thinking has already begun as we move forward after two years of a global pandemic. Architecture is currently set up for a shift as we approaches another shift towards the third iteration the web (Web 3). How we set up the field of architecture now could expand the field as well as making architects a key contribute in the design of virtual spaces and how people interact within them for generations to come.