From the day when Egyptian architects presumably sketched their first ideas for the Great Pyramids with sticks in the shifting sands to the present, more than thousands of years have passed. Throughout these millennia, architects have continually explored newer and more complete methods for depicting, embodying, and presenting their creative ideas for the creation of three-dimensional space. This embodiment, beyond helping the architect present their imagined conceptions to others, also aided the architect in gaining a more accurate understanding of what they had envisioned.
Architects initially used geometry and drafting tools to communicate their ideas to other stakeholders such as clients and contractors. Perspectives, three-dimensional drawings, and eventually maquettes and models were the subsequent tools for embodying the mental conceptions of architectural space designers.
But in the modern era, with the entry of computers into the realm of architectural space simulation, new horizons have opened before architects. For the computer, in addition to displaying dimensions and proportions, also showcases materials, color, and texture. It recreates lighting, and by animating images and setting them in motion, it also assumes some of the functions of physical models. The computer is a powerful tool that can play a multimedia role in conveying an idea from the designer to the audience.
The trajectory of architects’ experiences in testing methods for presenting their spatial ideas over these millennia represents an evolutionary progression toward achieving multimedia methods for the virtual recreation of architectural space — a trajectory whose ultimate goal has been the ever more complete, comprehensive, and realistic recreation of architectural space in virtual form.
The concept of “virtual reality” has long been the primary preoccupation of multimedia system designers in the field of simulation. The experiments and designs carried out in the realm of virtual reality recreation aim to capture all human senses — from sight and hearing to touch, smell, and even taste — and strive to make complete immersion in a virtual environment possible, akin to experiencing a dream.
At present, with the help of sensors that deliver all environmental messages to our senses and reciprocally receive our sensory and motor commands, we can enter a virtual environment, move in any direction we wish, view different angles of the environment and the events occurring within it at our choosing, hear the sounds present in the environment according to our position and in proportion to our movements, touch objects, experience their texture, softness, roughness, warmth, or coldness, smell the surrounding scents, and influence events through our behavior and movements. In a virtual reality environment, we can hear the sound of our footsteps, feel the breeze, converse and interact with other real individuals (users) or virtual ones (the system) present in the environment, and, in a manner of speaking, we can live.
But the effects of this new technological achievement are not limited merely to the presentation and expression of architecture. Virtual reality, combined with the capabilities of the vast internet network, creates possibilities and, consequently, transformations in various areas of our urban life as well. Currently, many conventional urban activities such as commerce, education, and others are being conducted online. On the network, one can step into a virtual shopping center, view the window displays of each store, enter a shop, examine the goods, and then make a purchase using a credit card. One can enter a virtual office, go to the department relevant to one’s business, ask the desired questions, or receive and complete the necessary forms and set one’s affairs in motion. One can also attend a virtual concert hall, choose a preferred seat, watch and listen to the performance, and even leave one’s seat to stand beside a musician and observe their technique up close.
The internet will accommodate a major portion of urban functional activities in the cities of the future and will portray a different face of the city for its citizens. The transformation of the concept of the city as a result of this technological development is itself an urban planning matter whose various aspects can already be observed and addressed. But alongside this issue, there is another noteworthy point: the form and appearance of the new virtual city that has emerged on the network. Certainly, this virtual city requires design — a design that, beyond its structure, also addresses its perceptual-spatial identity.
Who will carry out the design of these environments based on virtual reality technology? Undoubtedly, architects will be among the primary designers of these environments, since many of the characteristics and rules governing real and physical environments also apply to environments based on virtual reality. However, the spatial rules governing a “virtual reality” environment are not limited to those of real and physical environments. The “virtual reality” environment also has its own particular rules, which present new conditions and possibilities before designers and architects. Virtual reality, by virtue of its virtual nature, provides the possibility of liberation from many of the limitations and laws of the physical world. In the world of virtual reality, the conventional limitations of material properties, the cost of materials, static considerations, spatial dimensions, viewing angles, and so forth do not exist. In this virtual world, we can use materials regardless of their properties in the spaces of our designs. The selection of different materials creates no difference in terms of cost and expense. Conventional structural rules will play no determining role except within the domain of our visual habits. We can even experience the effects of the absence of gravitational force and the possibility of fixation, flotation, or the regular movement of elements and volumes in spaces, as though we were traveling on another planet. Distance is meaningless in this virtual world, and in a single instant, we can move between two points at the greatest distance. There is no limitation on the customary viewing angle governing our movement and perception of the environment. We can see the environment from a bird’s eye view, experience it through a fish-eye lens, or be in several places simultaneously and experience new possibilities that were never conceivable in the world of objective reality.
The discovery of perspective once changed the way architects looked at their surrounding environment. At one time, engineers discovered concrete, and its new capabilities brought about a revolution in architectural form and space. With the entry of computers into the field of architecture, it became possible to contemplate concepts such as complex geometric and mathematical forms — forms that were utterly inconceivable by traditional methods. Virtual reality recreation technology is also a new possibility that can impel the architects of the next millennium to envision even more imaginative spaces.
The emergence of this new professional branch — the design of virtual spaces — also adds a new role to the social-professional roles of architects. This is something that has precedent, for architects have always oscillated among a diverse array of social-professional roles, always holding the threads of multiple professional activities, and alongside the evolution and renewal of the way of life in each era, have experienced new roles and activities. The design of urban and architectural spaces on the network is also a new role belonging to the new era we are entering.
The past millennia have been millennia of the architect’s effort to realize their spatial conceptions — in other words, the transition of architecture from the virtual world to the real world. It appears that the coming millennium will be the millennium of architecture’s transition from reality to the virtual, for this time it is the virtual world that will be the ground for the realization of architectural imaginings. In this new millennium, the architect must be called the architect of virtual spaces.
Author’s email: Shahrvand@Avand.net