A Virtual Architect In A Virtual World

After modernity, virtuality: all that is solid melts into information.[1]

As a student of architecture in today’s world, digital media and its affect on the built environment cannot be avoided.  Technology is an important aspect of not only how we build but also how we design.  Soon, it appears, that with an increasing awareness of the potential for virtual worlds, technology will also play a great part in what we design.  Given this expansion of the built world, no doubt the role of the architect will need to adapt.

The immediate question to be asked is what is considered a “virtual world”?  The virtual can be physical.  “I will enter a graphic three-dimensional, computer-constructed world that does not look real but feels real, one that may respond immediately to my movements and commands.[2]”  The virtual can also be intangible and abstract.  “The virtual gives form, but itself has none (being the unform of transition).  The virtual is imperceptible.  It is insensible.  A building is anything but that.  A building is most concrete.[3]”  The virtual world is becoming increasingly an ‘interfaceless’ interface where there are no electronic tools - no buttons, windows, scroll bars, or icons – in an attempt to feel more real.

The goal of being as realistic as the highest-quality photographic representations of the world is particularly interesting when the source of the image is not the real world, but rather a world synthesized by a computer.[4]

In order for virtuality to be convincing, the process and the artist must be concealed.  The distinction between perception and representation, the original and copy, is blurred.  Given this, the virtual world is a source for new architectural possibilities.  Ultimately, the existence of the virtual illustrates the impact of the media on the way in which we represent and consequently build the world around us.

The whole external world will become an extension of our consciousness, just as it used to be for the most ‘primitive’ cultures on the planet.  This spells not the end, but the removal of homo theoreticus from center stage, to be replaced by homo participans.[5]

Considering an architect’s primary concern is about ‘space’ and the organization and design of it, what impact does the virtual have on notions of ‘space’?  According to Henri Lefebvre, space is political and ideological.  It is a product filled with ideologies.  Newton defines space as a pure vacuum, nothing but positions and points, continuous and empty in every direction.  Liebniz feels that space permits the existence of identity and simultaneity that without space things are neither unique nor countable.   Michael Benedikt, an architect whose research has primarily revolved around technology, media and virtuality, feels that this definition is the closest to the information-theoretical view or space.  Benedikt believes that the substance that makes space is information.  However, one begs to ask: Is information in space or is space in information?  Benedikt would say that space and information is one and the same thing.

We live in information, and much as architects would have it be otherwise, only a small portion of this information is about, or comes from, the people, streets, and buildings present around us.[6]

Cityspace is defined as the physical space of streets and buildings and natural landscapes.  Cyberspace, a term coined by science-fiction writer, William Gibson, in his novel, Neuromancer, is when personal virtual worlds become linked together.  “Cyberspace, like cityspace, can be inhabited, explored, and designed.[7]”

            Considering space in the virtual realm, there are two fundamental assumptions that are made, “firstly, that cyberspace should necessarily simulate reality, and secondly, that interaction in cyberspace should necessarily simulate interaction in reality.[8]”  Yet, unlike reality, in the virtual world, a condition has been created where every point in space is ready to take on different roles at any instant and for any person.  This is already seen in the pockets of intelligent space otherwise known as computer monitors.  The two-dimensional surface of the screen is constantly transforming and adapting to various tasks.  The language of windows, menus, icons, and tools will soon be extended into the third dimension.  Benedikt argues that cyberspace and cityspace need not be separate, given that similar things can occur in both worlds.  For example, like reality, virtual worlds are never turned off.  Time and events pass whether one witnesses them or not or whether one participates in them or not.  Since it is desirable for cyberspace to simulate reality, Benedikt lists a number of ‘principles’ for cyberspace, based on elements of cityspace.  Firstly, there is the ‘Principle of Universal Up,’ where there must be an agreement to which way is ‘up’ in the virtual world.  The ‘Principle of Indifference’ illustrates that life goes on in one’s absence.  The ‘Principle of Transit’, relating to ideas of space and time, states that if a distance is traveled, it should incur costs proportional to the distance.  Lastly, the ‘Principle of Personal Visibility’ states that users must remain visible.  However, it also states that visitors can tune out others, allowing for privacy.  This last ‘principle’ relates to changes in one’s notion of self and other in a virtual world.  Given this new sense of space, the virtual world will bring forth a new idea of body.

When we occupy virtual worlds, will it be understood that these are virtual bodies and possibly virtual identities so that ‘deception’ is no longer an issue, as it has been on Internet?[9]

This new body and new consciousness will bring forth a new environment what will look, listen, and react to its user, full of “smart buildings and tools, which attend to our every move, our every utterance.[10]”

Ultimately, the question remains: Is virtual space that much different from physical space?  According to Benedikt, the virtual world doesn’t have to be all that different from its physical counterpart. 

Virtuality is co-extensive with the real, for virtuality is already real, inclusive of the yet unexpressed or non-actualized portion of the real... while space is the receptor of forms, virtual spatiality is the generator of forms.[11]

There is a difference, however, in the sense that in the physical world, reality and illusion are more easily distinguishable.  Objects and spaces are more tangible in the real world.  In a virtual world, what is ‘property’ when new settlement can be fabricated?  What is ‘liberty’ when constraint is no longer governed by architecture or nature?  Furthermore, human beings are acquiring a new understanding of human presence and sense of self.  By inhabiting both the real and the virtual simultaneously, new ways of thinking and perceiving, which extend beyond our natural, genetic capabilities, emerge.  Ideas of ‘real’ objects and space begin to change as well.  ‘Real’ architecture becomes a

glorified ergonomic service zone, in which we eat, sleep, wash, exercise, breathe… [We] conduct our business and pleasure in cyberspace… These largely biological activities could all take place within the confines of a small studio flat.  Do we go out?[12]

Virtual reality becomes viewed as an escape from physical reality, suggesting that the physical world will be neglected and devalued much as the fleshed body has been in Western culture.[13]

Whether cyberspace attempts to simulate reality or strives to be radically different, more intense experience, reality begins to reassert itself, and in so doing attracts our attention to all its imperfections[14]

Considering the changes in notions of space, what becomes of architecture in the digital world?  Benedikt feels that “in an ‘information age’ it is too easy to lose sight of the fact that what something is, is distinct from what it communicates.[15]”  In his book, For an Architecture of Reality, ‘real architecture’ is defined as something that has presence (position as a new entity in a physical world[16]), significance (“significant buildings, real buildings, are achieved rather than provided[17]”), materiality (appreciation of natural origin of its substance, the manufacturing and forming process) and emptiness (“architecture with emptiness is thus always unfinished: if not literally, then by the space it makes and the potential it shows[18]”).  This last quality is especially relevant to virtual architecture.  Despite the lack of physical surroundings or ‘presence,’ virtual reality allows for architecture that succeeds in ‘emptiness’.  Architecture in a digital world allows for transformation, mutation, evolution, and metamorphosis, much more so than the physical world.  “This…is possible in a virtual world: clouds whose shadows set the earth aflame; chairs that are not chairs but someone in Utah, watching…[19]”  Van Berkel and Bos feel that

mediation techniques enabled by the computer signify a complete overthrow of many architectural assumptions, from the typology of organizational structures, to the hierarchical order of planning a structure, ending with the details.[20]

In the virtual world, architecture must be both ‘intelligent’ and publicly intelligible.  It will house systems that react to its user as much as the user interacts with it, providing rapid and effective feedback. 

For architecture to be able to connect with perspective virtuality, it needs to abandon all formalism, since its challenge would no longer be to simulate or represent existing forms and events but to respond to the yet unformed[21]

Jonothan Stoppi of Cadonmac UK suggests that ‘virtual’ buildings will be commissioned, designed and built as end products in their own right, and not just representations of, or preludes to, constructions in the real world.[22]  The virtual world can be a sustainable location for a museum, school, tourist resort, meeting place, or office.  The Internet already houses virtual stores (www.paulfrank.com), markets (www.ebay.ca) and libraries (http://vlib.org/).  The website is on its way to becoming completely virtual.  The “windows” and “doorways” of the Internet can easily progress to ‘rooms’ and ‘buildings.’

The artists of the future will sculpt using materials from which virtual realities are made… data, pure information.[23]

Given a future that includes both physical and virtual built forms, it is important to understand the changes that will be required concerning the role of the architect.  Benedikt emphasizes a need for two types of architects in the future.

As an architect, I am interested in my profession and its future, and I think one can safely say this: cyberspaces will require constant planning and management.  The structures proliferating within will require design, and the people who design these structures will be called cyberspace architects…cyberspace architects will design electronic edifices that are fully as complex…as their physical counterparts[24] 

This makes quite a bit of sense, considering design education today barely scratches the surface of everything an architect needs to know about the built environment.  Computer programmers, web-page designers, and architects all dabble in the virtual, however the future brings forth the need for interdisciplinary study and training in order to produce individuals equipped to tackle the potentials of cyberspace.   These cyberspace architects will not only be required to cope with the impact of the virtual world on the earth but also to manage the information flowing between real places and real people.  These ‘virtual’ architects will be working in a world that is more malleable than the physical world and will have unlimited power over it.  But why stop there?  In the virtual world, not only are spaces and objects subject to change but also bodily relationships to them and other bodies.  Cyberspace architects will also take on the designing of bodies, some of which do not have to take on human form at all.  Ultimately, there are a number of key issues that need to be addressed by cyberspace architects.  Firstly, ‘cyberception,’ the way one perceives cyberspace, will have to be understood and considered by designers in order to accommodate the transpersonal technologies that are shaping culture. 

Planning must be developed in an evolutive space-time matrix which is not simply three-dimensional or confined to a continuous mapping of buildings, roads and monuments.  Instead planning and designing must apply connectivity and interaction to four quite different zones: underground, street level, sky/sea, and cyberspace[25]

Secondly, the new job for architects is to fuse together material world with the cyber world.  According to Ascott, the guiding metaphors for cyber architects should stem from horticulture.  Buildings will be grown, not merely built.  Theses structures will therefore embody an inherent environmental fluidity and will be transformable to fit the changing needs of society.  “The challenge that the virtual poses for architecture lies more in its ‘unform’ nature than its abstractness.[26]”  Lastly, since being engrossed and immersed in a virtual world leaves one vulnerable to circumstances in the physical world, the cyberspace architect will have to address the physical surroundings of an individual experiencing virtuality.  Perhaps these architects will have to design protective systems for virtual users as part of the package.

            Perusing on the Internet, indications of the cyberspace architect can already be found.  Perhaps not to the extent of Benedikt’s description but digital architects such as Q4-2 (http://www.q4-2.com/), web architects such as Oaktek (http://www.oaktek.com/), and even Virtual Home architects (http://www.virtual-home.ch/architects.htm) are available and illustrate a step towards the creation of a new occupation, the cyberspace architect.  In the end, a question remains: How is the role of the cyberspace architect different from the modern day architect?  The truth is that it isn’t.  Like designers of the physical world, history and past experiences should be probed, however the virtual world remains a tabula rasa, unlimited.

…this is the ultimate design project: to imagine and create objects, spaces, bodies, movement and all relationships among them without ever having to consider any of the more tedious human needs for heat, light, air, food, sleep or elimination.  The architect is finally free of the ‘tyranny of function’[27]

To conclude, in today’s world, the impact of digital media on society is unavoidable.  Presently, ideas of space and architecture are already being changed with the increasing influence of television, computers and the Internet.  Virtual reality, in an elemental form can be experienced each time Windows or Mac O/S is operating.  As the desire for the virtual increases and the advancement of technology allows for the fulfillment of what was previously only fantasy, a new type of designer will be required.  This new type of designer will be the architect of the future, the ‘cyber’ or ‘virtual’ architect.  

Like a silent movie or the ethereal projection of a camera obscura, fragments of the real world were made strange and poetic[28]

Bibliography

Required Sources

1.              Bos, Carolyn, and Van Berkel, Ben.  Move.  Cross Park: Goose Press, 1999.

2.              Dewdney, Christopher.  Last Flesh: Life in the Transhuman Era.  Toronto: Harper Collins Publishers Ltd., 1998.

3.              Nye, David E.  Narratives and Spaces: Technology and the Construction of American Culture.  Oakville: University of Exeter Press, 1997.

4.              Wooley, Benjamin.  Virtual Worlds.  London: Penguin Books, 1993.

Sources

5.              Ascott, Roy.  “The Architecture of Cyerception.”  Architectural Design 65, no. 118 (1995): 38-41.

6.              Benedikt, Michael.  For an Architecture of Reality.  New York: Lumen Books, 1987.

7.              Benedikt, Michael.  Cityspace, Cyberspace, and the Spatiology of Information.  Available On-line at: http://www.ar.utexas.edu/center/benedikt_articles/cityspace.html

8.              Benedikt, Michael.  Physics for Phantoms.  Available On-line at: http://www.ar.utexas.edu/center/benedikt_articles/physics.html

9.              Bolter, J. D. and Grusin, R.  Remediation: Understanding New Media.  London: MIT Press, 1999.

10.           Borradori, Giovanna.  “Against the Technological Interpretation of Virtuality.”  Architectural Design 69, no. 141 (1999): 26-31.

11.           Chaplin, Sarah.  “Cyberspace: Lingering on the Threshold.”  Architectural Design 65, no. 118 (1995): 32-35.

12.           De Kerchhove, Derrick.  The Skin of Culture: Investigating the New Electronic Reality.  Toronto: Somerville House Publishing, 1995.

13.           Foreign Office Architects.  “Virtual House: Potential Beyond the Future.”  Architectural Design 69, no. 138 (1999): 78-81.

14.           Franck, Karen.  “When I Enter Virtual Reality, What Body Will I Leave Behind?”  Architectural Design 65, no. 118 (1995): 20-23.

15.           Holtzman, Steven R.  Digital Mantras: The Languages of Abstract and Virtual Worlds.  London: MIT Press, 1994.

16.           Massumi, Brian.  “Sensing the Virtual: Building the Insensible.”  Architectural Design 68, no. 133 (1998): 16-25.

17.           Novak, Marcos.  “Transarchitectures and Hypersurfaces: Operations of Transmodernity.”  Architectural Design 68, no. 113 (1998): 84-93.

18.           Slouka, Mark.  War of the Worlds: Cyberspace and the High-Tech Assault on Reality.  New York: Basic Books, 1995.

19.           Sobchack, Vivian.  Nostalgia for a Digital Object: Regrets on the Quickening of QuickTime.  Available On-line at: http://dc-mrg.english.ucsb.edu/conference/2000/PANELS/AFriedberg/nostalgia.html

20.           Van Berkel, Ben & Bos, Carolyn.  “Real Space in Quick Times Pavilion: Milan Triennale.”  Architectural Design 68, no. 133 (1998): 70-73.

Style Guide

21.           Slade, Carol.  Form and Style.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.