The metaverse "will be equal parts fear and wonder" says Liam Young

A panel including Liam Young, Refik Anadol and Space Popular expressed both optimism and trepidation about the rise of the metaverse in a talk hosted by Dezeen in collaboration with NeueHouse during Frieze Los Angeles.

Speaking on a panel organised by Dezeen as part of NeueHouse Hollywood's programming during Frieze Los Angeles, Young explained that the potential for creative expression in digital spaces was matched by the threat posed by privatisation and surveillance.

"There's real opportunity and excitement there, but there's also incredible danger," said Young, a speculative architect and co-founder of think tank Tomorrows Thoughts Today and research studio Unknown Fields Division.

Liam Young is a speculative architect

Young expects the metaverse to be a more mundane space than is often depicted in the media, which tends to focus on celebrity projects and luxury brands.

"The metaverse is not necessarily going to be a late capitalist Zuckerbergain fever dream," he explained.

"At the same time, it is neither going to be an escapist utopian fantasy or a flat world without the systemic horrors of the real."

"Metaverse will be equal parts fear and wonder"

"In a way, it'll be both of these things, because no technology has ever really been a solution to anything – it really just exaggerates the conditions that exist," he said.

"So the metaverse will be equal parts fear and wonder."

The talk, titled Building the Metaverse, was hosted on the rooftop terrace of NeueHouse Hollywood, and marks the first in a series of talks in collaboration between Dezeen and the workspace brand.

Hosted by design writer and Dezeen contributor Mimi Zeiger, the talk brought together a group of creatives working at the cutting edge of architecture, art and technology.

Appearing alongside Young were Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, co-founders of architecture practice Space Popular, and digital artist and director Anadol.

Anadol, held a more optimistic view of the metaverse's potential.

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"I've got more hope than fear," he said. "We have web 2.0 problems right now, we are all profiles somewhere on Earth, and we are all predictable. Hardware-software systems know where we go, what we eat, where we read and see and feel. I think that kind of profile in the cloud is most likely the 21st century imagination."

"I think the web 3.0 and eventually the metaverse has the potential to detach the profile culture, and maybe bring anonymity first of all," he explained.

"We choose to instead call it the immersive internet"

Hellberg stated that Space Popular has pushed back against use of the word "metaverse", claiming that many of the innovations associated with the term are already being used.

"The term that we're discussing here today, 'metaverse', we've actually resisted over many years, because it speaks for something new and exciting, something imagined," he said.

"We choose to instead call it the immersive internet. It's actually just a three-dimensional version of the internet. A lot of these things that we are going to experience, they are kind of already there."

During an introductory presentation, Lesmes revealed that Space Popular is working on a project exploring wayfinding in the metaverse.

Space Popular have been designing architectural "portals' that can transport" digital avatars from one virtual space to another, while using design to convey information about the space that they offer access to.

"Moving from one web page to another basically involves clicking on that blue underlined text, those hyperlinks," said Lesmes .

"When you have to switch between one three-dimensional space to another, you're very quickly confronted with the question, how do you create that transition?"

"In our research, we're trying to start to think about what we think is a good portal, what is an inviting portal, what is a portal that is also giving you enough information about the space you are entering," she continued.

"That made us start to think about these portals made of virtual fabric that potentially could give you information about this very complex network".

The still from Renderlands is by Liam Young

Partnership content

This talk was filmed by Dezeen for NeueHouse as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen's partnership contenthere.

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Watch our live talk with Stefano Boeri about his new book Green Obsession

Dezeen teamed up with Italian architecture studio Stefano Boeri Architetti to host a live talk marking the launch of Stefano Boeri's book exploring the relationship between nature and architecture.

Titled Green Obsession: Trees Towards Cities, Humans Towards Forests, the book explores the work that Boeri's eponymous architecture practice has been doing for the past 15 years to redefine the relationship between the city and nature.

Moderated by Dezeen's founder and editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs, the talk explored some of the book's central themes, including the role and importance of integrating nature with architecture and urban planning.

The book highlights the importance of architecture and urban planning co-existing with nature instead of replacing it

The book, published by Actar Publishers and supported by Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, aims to give voice to an ecological transition within architecture, in which cities are designed to support not only human life but all living species.

"We have an obsession: that of creating buildings for trees, which can also be inhabited by humans and even birds," Boeri said.

"We are also obsessed with designing forest cities, where plants and nature have no less of a presence than humans, and where both create a habitat in which mineral surfaces are reduced to the minimum amount needed for life."

Boeri created an urban planning proposal called Smart Forest City in Cancun, Mexico, which is designed to host up to 130,000 inhabitants

Other topics explored in the book include the role that communication, politics and economics play within the climate crisis. It includes contributions from ethologist and conservationist Jane Goodall and American environmentalist Paul Hawken, among other experts.

Boeri is best known for designing plant-covered buildings to combat air pollution and counter the effects of deforestation while fostering the connection between humans and nature in urban landscapes.

Amongst his most notable architectural projects is Bosco Verticale, which translates to vertical forest, a pair of high-density residential towers covered in trees in Milan.

More recently, Stefano Boeri Architetti completed its first vertical forest in China, comprising two 80-metre residential towers covered in over 400 trees and plants.

Stefano Boeri Architetti's most notable project is the Bosco Verticale residential towers in Milan

The book also includes masterplans of Boeri's The Green River design, an urban reforestation project for Milan's unused railways which proposes 45,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide could be absorbed while producing 1,800 tonnes of oxygen.

Partnership content

This talk was produced by Dezeen for Stefano Boeri Architetti as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership contenthere.

The post Watch our live talk with Stefano Boeri about his new book Green Obsession appeared first on Dezeen.

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