Gaby
Leading architecture firms Grimshaw, HWKN, WHY, and Farshid Moussavi answered an invitation from metaverse platform Pax.world and designed original social spaces for the platform.
The metaverse is a virtual space where people interact with others and with digital objects through avatars using virtual-reality technology.
Frank Fitzgerald, founder of Pax.world, says this adult-oriented metaverse lets people trade, socialize, and explore cultural treasures on a virtual platform.
After aligning their ideas with Fitzgerald, the firms created social spaces for Pax.world inspired by archetypes of the ancient Silk Road—caravanserais, deserts, oases, and the tree of life.
Each firm designed its own “metasaray” along the Silk Road. In these social spaces, metaverse users can meet, trade, and attend cultural events, Dezeen reports.
Here, people become the brightest versions of themselves
Pax.world founder Frank Fitzgerald began recruiting designers and architects to build metaverse spaces during the COVID-19 lockdown. It was during that period that he became frustrated with the limitations of video conferencing for business and communication.
Now his metaverse has won multiple awards and is competing to be the world’s first true virtual society. Pax.world’s social spaces—called metasarays—let users attend concerts, exhibitions, lectures, parties, and festivals in imaginative virtual buildings.
Grimshaw designed its space using data from user interactions. The studio’s striking rectangular metasaray hovers in the air, and visitors enter through spherical gates. This virtual space is primarily intended for business and cultural interactions, Grimshaw explained.
HWKN proposed a multi-level hexagonal space set in the desert. The structure features a giant amphitheater for concerts, wall-less art galleries, and open-air conference rooms.
In the metasaray designed by Farshid Moussavi Architecture, event spaces are arranged around three large circular courtyards. The buildings have mirrored facades that reflect the surrounding landscapes.
WHY designed a space for art galleries that features an interactive blooming garden, stones, waterfalls, and a tree of life at its center. The tree grows outward through an opening in the roof, and the structure is surrounded by pools with islands.
WHY representative Andriy Stoich says these spaces are meant to let people become the brightest versions of themselves.
Pax.world will continue to invite designers and architects to create social structures in the metaverse.
Oxford University Press named “metaverse” the second most popular word of 2022; “goblin mode” took the top spot.
