Multispace: Architecture at the Dawn of the Metaverse(Architectural Design)

Guest-edited by Owen Hopkins Multispace exists at the intersection of the physical and digital, and in the blurring of their previously clear dividing lines. Multispace is not a single space, but a hybrid space where, in effect, we occupy multiple spaces simultaneously. We enter it on a Zoom call, when we are in our office and in a meeting with 20 people; when we are cycling down a country lane whilst racing against thousands of others who also use the Strava app; when we are watching a TV show while live tweeting; or, perhaps most literally, when wandering around the local park looking for creatures that only appear on a smartphone screen. A fundamental question of this AD is why the phenomena that multispace describes are of concern to architects. The answer is that multispace points to a situation that is at root an architectural one. Offering both a collective and highly personalised experience, static and dynamically customisable, and above all at the same time public and private, multispace lies at the centre of a set of tensions, concerns and preoccupations at the core of our conception of architecture as theory and practice. It is the messy space between, with rough and uneven edges that are constantly shifting. Contributors: Aleksandra Belitskaja, Alice Bucknell, Jesse Damiani, Wendy Fok, Andrew Kovacs, Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, Micaela Mantegna, Holly Nielsen, Giacomo Pala, Paula Strunden, Lucia Tahan, and Francesca Torello and Joshua Bard. Featured architects and artists: iheartblob, Ibiye Campis, Office Kovacs, Space Popular and Liam Young.

Table of Contents:
About the Guest-Editor 5 Owen Hopkins Introduction Architects in Multispace 6 Owen Hopkins The Portal Galleries: Researching Portals in Fiction from the 19th Century to the Present 14 Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg The Home as an Infinite Screen 22 Lucia Tahan Hidden Infrastructures: From ‘Spy-Hubs’ to Hollow Buildings that Conceal the New Digital 30 Wendy W Fok Architecture in Postreality: Emerging Approaches to Space in Hybrid Realities 38 Jesse Damiani Touching, Licking, Tasting: Performing Multisensory Spatial Perception Through Extended-Reality Models 48 Paula Strunden Multipurpose Domesticity: Labour, Leisure and Kitchen Tables 56 Holly Nielsen Conjunctions: Or, Space as Oxymoron 64 Giacomo Pala Celebrating the Glitch: The Multispatial Work of Ibiye Camp 72 Owen Hopkins Architecture is Interface: Latent Virtuality from Antiquity to Zoom 78 Joshua Bard and Francesca Torello Very Big Art: Follies, the Public and Multispace 86 Andrew Kovacs Ways of Worlding: Building Alternative Futures in Multispace 94 Alice Bucknell The Anti-Metaverse: Multispace and the Intersections of Reality 104 Micaela Mantegna and Marcelo Rinesi All At Once – From Zoom Fatigue to Immersive Digital Experiences: Why Architecture Must Adapt 112 Sasha Belitskaja Shifting Contexts: Liam Young's Prototypes of Architectural Futures 122 Owen Hopkins From Another Perspective – The Haçienda Must Be Built 128 Neil Spiller Contributors 134

About the Author :
Owen Hopkins is an architectural writer and curator. He is Director of the Farrell Centre at Newcastle University. Previously he was Senior Curator of Exhibitions and Education at Sir John Soane’s Museum and before that Architecture Programme Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts. He is curator of numerous exhibitions including most recently Langlands & Bell: Degrees of Truth (2020). A frequent commentator on architecture in the press, on radio and TV, he is author of seven books, including The Museum: From its Origins to the 21st Century (2021), Postmodern Architecture: Less is a Bore (2020), Lost Futures (2017), Mavericks (2016) and From the Shadows (2015), and editor of a further eight books / journal special issues / digital publications. He lectures internationally and is a regular guest critic at architecture schools as well as a judge for several architecture awards.