Methodology
4.2
Virtual Reality as Architectural Practice In the 1990s Marcos Novak proposed using Virtual
Reality to create a new type of architecture “cut loose from the expectations of logic, perspective, and laws of gravity” (Silva, 2006 p. 2). Using terms like Liquid Architectures of Cyberspace and Transarchitectures, Novak put forth spaces conceived specifically for a virtual domain, one that does not exist in a physical world. The implications of Novak’s explorations are becoming more relevant as virtual worlds become layered onto and interactive with our everyday environments. Recently there has been a growing body of research around the merging of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and the built environment. An extension of Ubiquitous Computing, Human Building Interaction (HBI) is an aspiration to “transition from the ‘realm of artifacts’ to the ‘realm of architecture” (Alavi et al., 2019, p. 2). This field has started to address how “merging interactive experiences are ‘spatiotemporally immersive’... ones that are not discrete or limited to moments of interaction, but persist over time, and can be enacted at different temporal scales of adaptability” (p. 2). HBI can allow architects to use data in order to enrich occupants interaction with the built environment, where as “designing spaces has historically relied on making assumptions about occupants' comfort and desires” (Alavi et al., 2019). As we start to re-define architecture as a user interface it requires a reconsideration of many design fundamentals. Nabil describes OUI environments as “immersive rather than focused, when interacting with spaces rather than devices or building-sized interfaces rather than tabletops” (Nabil et al., 2017, p.96). Though Augmented Reality and the promises of spatial computing are presently starting to take hold, Virtual Reality is a more immersive tool that better serves the cause of interactive environments that engender emotional affordance. When they acquired the Virtual Reality platform Oculus, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained that “strategically we want to start building the next major computing platform that will come after mobile” (Zuckerberg quoted by Hassan, 2014, p. 196). Though VR is not yet universally accessible it very much hails the beginning of a new media era. In his TED Talk The Birth of Virtual Reality as an Art Form, Chris Milk expounds 72
a techno-utopian vision for the future of VR:
