Everybody talks about Metaverse, but hardly anyone agrees on what it is. For the moment, it is still enigmatic, however, it seems like its ambiguity is its strength. Not a day goes by without a new article or a video on this subject, trying to convince people that Metaverse will inevitably become a part of our daily lives soon. Architects and designers are essential parties to the ongoing discussion as it is a spatial innovation that requires the Internet to be redesigned as a 3D environment.
When architects think within the limits of real-life architecture, their initial response to this new universe is to celebrate the “unlimited possibilities” of the Metaverse. Leon Rost, director of BIG claims that in the Metaverse, “structure, materiality, and cost, all go out the window” while Rashed Singaby, senior project designer for HOK believes that “between designing for the metaverse and leveraging its capabilities, the potential is almost limitless”. Metaverse feels like a light at the end of a tunnel as a limitless realm for architects, who have been designing as if the resources were endless for the past decades and are now forced to restrict their imagination because of the current ecological and economic crisis in the world. However, the construction of a virtual environment -simultaneously experienced by the masses- still has its limits, such as budget, gravity, or materials, rather than being an unlimited domain.
