The Role of Architecture in Metaverse Societies by Eduardo Dávalos Alejandri

foreign what's up Denver I hope you're doing all right I'm very excited to be up here I've been waiting for this moment for quite a while now and yeah I'm very excited since the first moment I arrived I saw there was people doing a lot of crazy stuff crazy ideas and that made me started to think uh what could I do for this to hack so I came up with the the idea of what if we had this web um this 3D space that resembles this one this space where we are almost like a digital twin of the place where we're at so that not only you that are here around but also those who've missed uh Denver can come and can get to see the experience of if Denver all right so I have a surprise for you I actually did the whole thing on 3D I uploaded into the central end and now we have a decentraline worlds working for East Denver and how exactly does that work okay let me uh tour you guys show you around so you arrive and the first thing you see is a 3D Spork there you go we got the Buffy corn as well and this is the venue where everything is happening all right so I suppose that we've all been here this is me I don't know if I look alike but alright let's do it as soon as I get in the first thing that I see is a security check all right so I'm supposed to leave my stuff there there I can see the registration and I can see almost everything of what's going on on this place all right so we have the witty pixels game here we have a link so that you can click it we have a link to the merch for East Denver we have a map for the sport castle and we have the uh stages this is stage number two and this is stage number one if you guys Wanna Feel know how it how it feels to be up here it's kind of like this all right so yeah this is a space so that everyone who didn't attend to eat Denver is able to come around and talk to people so yeah that's what I've been working in just as a surprise for this talk if you go outside you can find the food trucks as well and you're gonna be able to see the uh the rock exciting they're called the Rockies so in case you're not going to the ski Retreat you can come and climb up this one all right so if you guys want to join this play this place uh just let me know and I'll give you the link so that uh you can invite your friends uh I'm trying to do like a party or something over here so yes this is build a verse all right perfect so yeah I just wanted to show you these guys uh I just think it's very cool I did for the for the presentation but we're not here to talk about build a verse or whatever I'm talking about the role of architecture in metaverse society so let me just introduce myself my name is Eduardo Eduardo dabalos I'm from Mexico and I can proudly say that I am a metaverse architect how does that even work because I get that question a lot especially here where there's a software Architects uh and as soon as I say that I'm an architect there's just start speaking stuff uh languages that I just don't understand so yes I'm an architect I design architecture and I bring that architecture into the metaverse all right so we're gonna talk about the role of architecture in metaverse societies let's uh tear it up I think we all know what architecture is this buildings that surround ourselves uh all day long almost any time of our lives the metaverse I think we've all been been there these digital spaces where you can chat you can commute with other people using your 3D avatars and societies we are all part of societies so yeah I know I think we have enough so let's talk about what's the impact of architecture in real life okay so first of all there is a physical environment that is being manipulated by architecture as humans we spend more than 80 percent of our lives inside of spaces of indoor spaces and the other 20 we're outside but we're also communicating ourselves with architecture we're always surrounded either by Parks either by buildings by Urban landscape whatever so this architecture has a direct impact on the way that we feel physically our comfort and our safety safety all right so there's also a emotional well-being in which we all know how important it is to have natural light Open Spaces view of Nature and how that can improve our mood or can reduce the in the stress that we're dealing with especially in these kind of uh places I feel like this one is kind of dark that's why I did the metaverse one a little bit lighter there's also a cultural identity which I think is very interesting architecture has always been part of culture uh they say that architecture is the reflection of what's happening with societies and also for history I mean these buildings don't talk for five years for 10 years they talk for decades for centuries so the role of architecture within history is very important as well and also the economic impact uh architecture that is well well designed it is uh you can get more tourism more new clients and when it's poorly designed you mostly get Negative outputs out of that oh okay so that's what architecture does in real life what happens in the metaverse how is it different does it change a lot to be honest as an architect working for the metaverse and working for real world clients is almost the same the process is very similar it's going into going to a concept going through it and making it happen the only difference is that in the metaverse you don't have to deal with people to build that place right you just have to do the 3D model upload it to the metaverse as I did and then just code some interactions of what's going to happen when that user enters the space okay so when doing architecture we're doing in the metaverse we're doing spaces for social interaction where people can connect where people can talk to each other and then and they can get along also something very interesting is that designing architecture for the metaverse has made me thought of buildings as these uh weird case of user experience in which you have to do um you have to to guide the user to the different stages of your building of your user experience and make it do what you wanted to do so yeah if uh metaverse building is well designed then it tends to be more engaging and when it's poorly designed you can even get motion sickness from it I think we have all been through that with VA with VR probably also the economic impact architecture is creating a very very interesting Creator economy among architecture 3D and stuff and one of the most interesting for me or the one that this talk is going to be about is cultural identity and how does that have to do with metaverse what does that have to do with societies well those societies we have seen some of them I know they're still developing but we've seen for example this is the central lens map this map was divided into different neighborhoods or districts as you can see Vegas city ethereum project red light district fashion Street Etc so each one of these neighborhoods is being rolled and all the decisions are being taken by a Dao so that gives you the first glimpse of this of these metaverse societies of people that are gathering in Virtual Worlds and are taking decision on what happens and how that world develops there's also a lot of influencers going on Twitch and uh there's a big amount of people getting to know different cool spots in the metaverse things to Twitch so personally that helps me a lot I hop into this twitch into this twitch sessions I see what people are saying about those buildings and that helps me so that I can design better architecture for metaverse spaces also ice poker I don't know if you guys have heard of this um it works like this you buy an nft which is a wearable in the central land and if you have it you're gonna be able to go to a casino in the central end and start gambling in the metaverse so we can see that these metaverse societies are starting to grow are starting to create a profile on what they're looking for and how they like to identify themselves this is a quote for from one of my favorite Architects called I am pay it says you only have the cast your eyes on buildings to feel the presence of the past the spirit of a place they are the reflection of society and I like it because uh it's true as I was saying before architecture lasts forever so well not forever but for a long time in the real world but in the metaverse architecture can change day by day hour by hour or even by minute I could I could delete the Bittle verse that I did right now and no one will ever know so there is if there's societies there is architecture and there is history to be taken note and and to keep track of I think that is very important Okay then if we talk about uh people asking for architecture in the metaverse then let me tell you guys what I've seen around the metaverse I've seen different uh architecture Styles I've seen futuristic architecture uh fantasy architecture post-apocalyptic historic and realistic we know in the realm of the metaverse uh well as well for Architects we can design almost whatever we want so you can either go for something very realistic or you can go crazy and do something that would not be able to exist in the real world and I think that's one of the things that makes me happy about the metaverse when I used to be in architecture school my background's always been in the 3D VR stuff like that so my teachers would say that my buildings would be either too cost too expensive or almost impossible to build right so when I found what the metaverse was I was like dude here's a place where all of my crazy ideas with an architecture can um can be alive so yeah that's what I like about it and it is interesting to see how people are doing very crazy stuff for example this is uh Mariana cabugeira she is an architect and she's working for Wilder worlds uh and she's always done this super organic cool looking architecture super futuristic and this is um Hadid I don't know if you guys know that that studio actually Mariana I used to work for sahadid then she uh dropped out and she started her own metaverse Studio uh this is for liverland it is a project for a metaverse city so you can see all these experimentations and what I'm really excited about is that it's it's not how metaver how architecture is good for the metaverse but I think it's sideways as well so that metaverse can do good stuff for architecture so that we Architects can start to experiment and do crazy stuff online and then see if it's feasible to do in real life we can also see fantasy looking architecture architecture that looks like if it was taken from a cartoon all right so this is a office that I design and this is a wedding venue that I designed as well yeah we've made quite a lot of weddings in the metaverse and this one has uh like a cloud looking thing and it's even floating as if you were getting married on the sky then we got apocalyptic this right here is moniverse the Fallen giant one of my favorite spaces in this in in the metaverse it's called moniverse if you guys haven't heard of it it's very nice and this one uh this post-apocalyptic looking it's a horror game in the Central and called The Book of Solomon something but it's a very horrifying game in the central Landing kite in case you guys want to play it I mean we've seen this poster apocalyptic looking architecture in video games before so actually none of this is new we've been doing video games for a long time we've been working with 3D we've been uh Gathering communities virtually so the metaverse is not alienized for us at all also we can see historic architecture I did this one for uh this is uh part of Mexico City el Zocalo we did it for Mexico's independence day and this was one of the weddings that I've designed and they say they mentioned that they've always wanted to be in Paris so yeah uh we did Paris for the wedding they loved it and uh well let me tell you about that uh being a wedding planner in the metaverse is actually quite a lot of fun because you don't know don't only get to know the couple you get to design how their wedding is going to look like and if that involves architecture then it makes me very happy and we also have the realistic type of architecture in the metaverse for example we see Domino's Pizza they release something in the central land where you would go for a store that looks like uh like a real world store and you will need to find eight slices of pizza that are hidden throughout the store if you do so you will get a wearable so it's like this fun uh experiences we also have soda buys I don't know how it's pronounced but the facade is almost the same as the one in the real world so they're doing almost what I did I replicated this this space turning into three D and upload it to the metaverse also Forever 21 they have like this realistic looking type of architecture um that that was for metaverse Fashion Week metaverse Fashion Week is happening late March so if you guys are up to something or want to do something for metaverse fashion week please let me know um I don't think I have uh enough time like to keep going I just want to start uh concluding my ideas and what I'm bullish about I'm bullish about um architecture helping the metaverse to thrive I truly believe that the future of how the metaverse looks is in hands of Architects 3D modelers and of course the communities that ask for these spaces so it's going to be an interesting Synergy to see how Architects 3D modelers and metaverse users start creating the way that the metaverse shapes all right so yeah I think that's basically it if you guys have any questions I'll be down here uh asking uh answering almost anything that you that you want to know uh and that's it I just want to say as an architect I am committed fully committed to make the metaverse a better place thank you so much [Applause] foreign let me know