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THE BRIEFING
Into the Metaverse: Fusing the Real World with the Digital MIDDLE EAST
Drew Gilbert, design manager at OBM International, looks at the opportunities presented by the metaverse for the AEC industry
August 2022 | MEConstructionNews.com
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new architectural era is among us, the creation of place making has teleported to a parallel world. A realm that bypasses physical constraints of materiality, structural integrity and enclosure from the physical elements. This has unleashed a new kind of reconceptualization of what architecture is, what it can be, and how we will experience it. As the metaverse concept has been around for decades, it has become a buzzword with the announcement of Facebook becoming Meta and billions of dollars being invested into metaverse technologies. Experiencing the internet will have a new connotation as we enter ourselves into the 2D screen into a fully immersive 3D world; A 3-Dimensional world of connectivity that enables users to shop, visit friends and family, meet with colleagues and clients all in one place. We must ask
ourselves the question on how to best utilise this evolving technology to enrich our lives and the built environment. A 3-DIMENSIONAL WORLD OF CONNECTIVITY The metaverse will become a collection of fully immersive real-time environments interlinked/interoperable with one another where users (in the form of avatars/meta personas) can interact with the environment and each other either for business/entertainment purposes in decentralised and co-created worlds. In short, the metaverse is a virtual reality version of the internet where the outside will be shared as a digital form. It is all possible thanks to the emergence of Web3.0 technology, a world driven by data, decentralisation, and user autonomy. The easiest way to visualise the transition from Web2.0 to Web3.0 is like moving from 2D to 3D. The existing protocols and services of today’s internet