Imagine living a parallel live online without ever leaving your home. The internet and gaming juggernauts see metaverse as the next significant step in the web’s evolution. To be very honest, we’re all excited about the metaverse and the possibilities it is going to present in the wake of Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of it in October 2021.

Metaverse, these virtual designs, is an overblown jargon appropriated from a science fiction book written in the 1990s or a multi-trillion dollar opportunity that will impact almost every aspect of our lives? And what is it exactly?

The opening of the metaverse creates pathways that push the limits of the physical world and converge the real and virtual worlds. As there are different perspectives on what the metaverse will mean to architects and designers, there are almost as many working definitions of it. Changes in how architectural firms operate, the services they offer, and the products they produce will be made possible by the 3D immersive metaverse. “All the physical spaces we design—interiors, buildings, campuses and cities—are born as meta spaces,” says Brian Jencek, HOK’s San Francisco-based director of planning.

However, it’s frequently used to refer to a version of the internet that will exist in the near future and will immerse users in a 3D virtual reality environment where they may engage and carry out real-world activities.

What is Metaverse?

In science fiction and futuristic literature, the metaverse is defined as fictitious version of the Internet that is a single, all-encompassing hyper-realistic virtual environment promoting people to coexist in an immersive and communal environment using 3D personalised avatars. This made possible by the usage of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets. A metaverse is a collection of 3D virtual environments that are mostly utilised for social interaction.

Indeed, the theory of the metaverse has existed for a long-time. In the science fiction novel “Snow Crash,” which was released in the year 1992, author Neal Stephenson first used the term Metaverse. The book relates the tale of “Hiro Protagonist,” a figure who, although is a pizza delivery boy in real life, is a samurai in the fictional Metaverse in the parallel universe.

In recent months, the term “Metaverse” has grown in popularity within the technology and video game industries. Even the biggest businesses in the industry are pouring millions of dollars towards its growth. Facebook, which just announced the formation of a team devoted to “Metaverse,” is the most recent to enter this industry. This is going to be a very big part of the next chapter for the tech industry, network president Mark Zuckerberg told The Verge, noting that “Metaverse is the heir to the mobile Internet “. He wants to know the “Facebook” as the Metaverse Company, not Social Media Company.

Technologies Powering these Virtual design

The significance of the metaverse mainly stems from the fact that social media is predicted to migrate to it in the future. It is expected to become a social phenomenon in the near future given the new real-world elements the metaverse has made available, such as a 3D world, socialising, gaming, etc. The metaverse has certainly materialised, but only because of specific technological advancements.

Hardware

The entry point to the metaverse is augmented reality and virtual reality. These two technologies are the massive engines needed to power the metaverse project’s ability to enable immersive experiences and a more interesting three-dimensional digital world. The goal of current hardware development is to increase immersion with haptic technology while overcoming the constraints of VR headsets and sensors.

Dependence on VR technology has impeded the growth and widespread adoption of the metaverse. Mobility and high-quality graphics are lacking due to the limitations of portable hardware and the necessity to strike a balance between cost and design. The retina display pixel density required for complete visual immersion has been difficult for lightweight wireless headphones to accomplish.

Software

In the development of the metaverse, interoperability is a big worry due to issues with transparency and privacy. A common technical specification has not been widely adopted for metaverse implementations, and those that have been made thus far mostly use private technologies.

Pixar developed the Universal Scene Description specification, which is supported by Blender, Apple’s SceneKit, and Autodesk 3ds Max. NVIDIA, a tech company, declared in 2021 that they would use the USD for its metaverse development tools.

Metaverse in Architecture, Construction Industry

According to the definition, the metaverse is a virtual reality environment where users can communicate with other users and a computer-generated environment. Using metaverse in the architecture sector will enable designers and architects to create places in an increasingly efficient manner, as it will give them the chance to experience the space as it is being built.

The development of the metaverse and the unique capacity of the technology will allow user to walk around a nearly actual representation of the area, which can be advantageous to architects and designers, who traditionally rely on 3D modelling and visualisations of build spaces. By taking part in the building design in the metaverse, architects and designers can remotely collaborate on design concepts. Furthermore, it is crucial to recognise the value of the metaverse at each of the three stages of building, including design, development, and construction phase. Through AR and VR, the concept gives a feel for the finished product that is almost genuine in early stages.

Metaverse vs Architecture

A metaverse and hard core architecture are not the same thing. To design any space in the physical world, from creating indoor to outdoor spaces need crucially important knowledge, which architects and designers learnt through out there studies and experiences in the industries.  In terms of metaverse vs actual architecture, one might anticipate that society will continue to view architects as low-value individuals with some particular talents to use software programs.

The qualities of the room itself make the most difference. Regardless of whether you engage with a space, it still existing in a natural setting. However, in a virtual environment, every location has a purpose or a narrative. The fundamental components of the virtual environment are used for that reason. Additionally, there won’t be any real-life limitations or limits in the metaverse, such as gravity, structural stability, climatic concerns, or physical laws and so on. Consequently, architects are free to surpass the constraints at hand and produce remarkable surroundings and genuine works of art.

Finally, in the metaverse, the entire environment is developed with the same amount of time and effort that is spent simply on visualisation, whereas in present architecture, visualisations are created to communicate the ambiance and details of the space to the audience before the creation.

Metaverse – Pros and Cons

The various modern trends in metaverse technology with reference to building construction system that have been employed by contemporary architectural firms around the world through research have been analyzed. Both benefits and drawbacks of the metaverse are seen to apply to architects.

Advantages of Metaverse in Architecture

For instance, a digital twin of a real project may be developed in the metaverse, where users could live there for a period of time before construction begins to determine whether they like it or not. It is a wonderful benefit to compare it to the most well-known architects of the natural world, who are rather ancient because building projects takes years.

Disadvantages of Metaverse in Architecture

The effects of this technological advancement on students and professionals are anticipated in terms of the difficulty they have in explaining their work to others and the inadequate language they use when speaking with clients or other people who are primarily not architects. However, spending a lot of time in front of a computer as metaverse designers can eventually disrupt our circadian pattern.

Future Opportunities

The popularity of the metaverse has expedited the changes taking place in the world around us. Recently, demand in meta-architectural firms has outpaced supply, opening up new possibilities for architects to engage with and contribute to the creation of this new digital environment. Recently, PUBG Mobile and Zaha Hadid Architects worked together to develop a virtual setting where gamers from all around the world can engage in interactive entertainment.

According to Leon Rost, director of the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), “things like structure, materiality, and cost go to waste.”  The lack of aesthetic restraint has drawn architects who want to push the limits of what space can be formally.  SpaceForm, a virtual meeting platform created by BIG and UNStudio, allows users to engage in real time inside future spaces with holographic tables that show 3D representations and data visualisations.

Conclusion

The powers of the metaverse are still being discovered. But as the world moves more and more in the direction of cutting-edge technology, it is only a matter of time before it becomes a widely used resource on a global scale. Project managers, designers, and architects will surely profit from the metaverse, but they will also need to contribute to its creation. The built environment’s metaverse in construction is merely the beginning, and the sector has yet to realise the full potential of what future conceptions may accomplish by opening up a universe of possibilities. As a result, it appears that architects will lead the metaverse by offering extremely desirable space features to its many users.