Guojian Nova: Building Romantic Architecture in the Virtual World

Source: Wanxiang Blockchain

Hello everyone! Tonight, I would like to share some experiences from the past nine years, along with new thoughts from the last six months.

The theme of the speech focuses more on virtual architecture, as well as the future development direction of virtual architecture as an emerging concept, the current state of affairs, and how we should understand its essential core.

Today, I will discuss a few key points:

First, the new mission of architecture in the virtual realm.

Virtual architecture itself is quite abstract, but I will try to explain what I believe to be the essence of architecture in the virtual world. Why build architecture in virtual space? Do these buildings fundamentally differ from real architecture?

Let's start by pondering a question: What does architecture serve? Whether it's real architecture, virtual architecture, or fantastical architecture in literary works, what do they serve?

My team and I believe they serve the following:

1. Place: Architecture should serve specific human activities. What are these specific human activities? For example, my home is designed to serve specific activities like living and hosting guests. Due to these specific human activities, my home is divided into basic units like bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, and dining rooms. From this point, we can see that a specific space is inevitably designed and constructed to serve a particular human activity. Without the fundamental human activity, there would be no design or need for design.

2. We often see monuments, memorials, and sculptures in public buildings. What are these? In a broader sense, they are also part of architecture, but they are not confined to spatial design or more academic design concepts; they are more oriented towards art. They exist as subjects and markers of human aesthetic activities.

Looking at some well-known monuments in our country, we find that they are actually connected to collective consciousness, such as national consciousness, societal awareness of justice, or other universal values, ultimately materialized through architecture and sculpture, becoming a condensation of collective thoughts.

From this perspective, it can be said that real architecture likely serves these purposes.

What differences might virtual architecture have in this regard? At this stage, virtual architecture represents a kind of homologous alienation of real architecture. Why homologous? Why alienation? Let me explain.

Homologous alienation can be understood as reinforcing certain attributes of real architecture while weakening others. Analyzing from the perspective of specific human activities, in the virtual world, there is no need for sleep, dining, or even using the restroom.

Correspondingly, these needs do not exist in a space, and such human behaviors are rarely present. Of course, some may perform sleeping as part of immersive role-playing, but that’s another matter.

In fact, social interests, display, and interactive entertainment needs in this space are amplified. Virtual spaces indeed provide us with social and entertainment means that we cannot have or that are more diverse in reality. On this level, the design of virtual space becomes alienated, leading to different outcomes in space design. At least, when you need to construct a virtual residence, you do not need to set up bathrooms and bedrooms.

From another perspective, will there be office needs in the virtual world? I suspect not. Does this mean we do not need to build a large number of office buildings in the virtual world? That’s one point. In reality, we pursue more spiritual and willful aspects, so the demand for aesthetic markers like statues and group memorials will be amplified. Moreover, because it is detached from the rules of the physical world, we can accommodate more artistic elements for more exaggerated expressions.

Thus, we can see that many virtual plots are engaged in strongly artistic memorial-style creations. Currently, many virtual world products are doing these things.

Of course, there is a small downside. When I first started giving offline speeches and sharing within my team, I often mentioned that I came from the internet industry, and the more I worked in the internet, the more I grew to dislike it. The root of this lies in how internet socialization and activities flatten individuals, compressing rich personalities into mere labels. Indeed, through WeChat, other instant messaging tools, and social networks, we can express ourselves quickly and freely, but the cost is a significant reduction in the richness of expression. Social objects cannot clearly and completely recognize the fullness of my personality.

When everyone is labeled, it becomes very convenient to find others with the same label in a crowd, allowing simple consensus to be quickly achieved.

However, precisely because of the existence of these labels, they have been flattened, making it impossible to re-concretize them. The semantic meaning of words may say I am "2D," which represents a series of behaviors. But when you try to concretize the three words "2D" into a specific architectural entity, you will find it hard to start, or if you really do it, you will discover that the original labeled consensus collapses due to the specifics of its birth. Not everyone under the label system likes every aspect of concrete things.

This raises a question: although consensus can be easily reached in a linguistic environment, when it comes to crystallizing that consensus into landmarks, a problem arises—a gap that is hard to cross. This makes it difficult for collective or individual group thought to be personalized in the virtual world.

Overall, at this stage, virtual architecture bears the responsibility and mission of providing a stage for virtual events. This new mission can be seen as the core of design under this mission being human activity.

Why do I say this? Let’s first take out a city map; a paper one is best. If you don’t have a paper one, you can find any current map product screenshot and print it out, preferably one near your home, for an experiment.

Take a thick black marker and black out all the residential areas on the paper map, black out office areas and buildings, and black out dining areas like food streets. If it’s a comprehensive mall with a dining street on the ground floor, that’s fine, as there are shopping and cultural activities inside.

After blacking these places out, look at what remains in the entire community. What remains is roughly the range of human activities in virtual life, suggesting that there should be a demand for these types of buildings and space design in the virtual world.

The mission of virtual architecture is to serve virtual "new activities." Why the word "new"? Online virtual activities fundamentally differ from offline activities in terms of hosting cycles, interaction methods, venues, and processes, making it a brand-new form of activity.

The next direction of research is a renaissance movement regarding the Metaverse.

There was a period of confusion in the past; during that historical renaissance, it was finally discovered that talent should be the ultimate goal of all efforts, imaginations, planning, construction, and knowledge. The idea that "humans are the purpose, not tools" has been echoed for a long time.

In fact, history is often cyclical. We can look at the things experienced during the budding development of the Metaverse.

It initially arose from a worship of technology, along with the abstraction of code, machine language, and mysticism. We revered these things, thinking of them as "sacred fires" illuminating a new era. These technologies were seen as very sacred and admirable. Then, we began to use this new language system to understand the world, explaining the operation of human society, including communication, interaction, trading, and display, using this new language system.

In the end, one point becomes clear: the more we replicate the human world, social behaviors, and reconstruct this human society using new languages, the more we realize that the values we pursue are not embedded in strings of code or in 3D models and animations. What we seek must be the flesh-and-blood individuals or the personal things they think of in their minds.

Ultimately, it can be anticipated that the exploration of the Metaverse will certainly enter a new renaissance period. At this time, it may redefine what it means to be human, how human personality will exist, what position subjectivity relies on, and will re-examine this physical body, as well as where thoughts will extend their reach and control which worlds.

For example, in "Blade Runner," replicants dream of electric sheep. I now answer that we do not need to replicate the virtual world using traditional real-world thinking. A virtual being that does not sleep cannot dream of a replicant sheep.

Next, I will share my expectations for the research on building virtual spaces.

First, we will gradually find that mimicking the real world and bringing it into the virtual world is not inherently appealing. As I mentioned earlier, many brands are establishing their image headquarters and showrooms in virtual spaces, and some individuals are hiring professional construction teams to design residences for themselves in the virtual world.

However, these things are more based on the discovery of a new land, where I hold a certain enthusiasm and freshness for the virtual space, leading to impulsive consumption and investment.

But to put it bluntly, the original mindset believes that a certain location is great, so I want to buy a house there; a certain business district is fantastic, so I want to open a shop there. This is an inherent mindset brought by offline business models and lifestyles.

Do these mindsets still hold in the virtual world? Do the implied logical relationships still hold in the virtual world? If you dig deep and ask yourself some questions, you will find that many things people are trying now are merely impulsive actions. Of course, they may inspire us, but in the long run, they are not the future direction of industrial development.

In fact, people engage in unique activities in virtual environments, including Justin Bieber recently holding a virtual concert in Wave.

In the virtual space, the original scenario of an idol singing on stage while fans jump and scream seems highly interactive, but in reality, there is still a group of security guards mediating the interaction. This has transitioned to a virtual world where I can view my idol from all angles and receive various performance services. I can even fly above to watch him, set off fireworks for him, and engage in specific interactive activities with other fans, enriching my entertainment experience during the concert.

Looking at it this way, at least in these virtual concerts, general human activities have evolved and developed in the virtual world, giving them a certain virtual uniqueness. We will discover that we should pursue human activities with virtual uniqueness held in the virtual world.

Correspondingly, unique activities in virtual spaces will naturally give rise to many space designs aimed at virtual activities. Space design may far exceed the current summarized experiences of space design, leading to other developments. Of course, these other developments cannot yet be clearly articulated, as you cannot expect a summer insect to talk about ice. I have not yet seen a large number of uniquely virtual activities, which still require pioneers to create, think, or directly implement.

I believe that as activities gradually increase, many space designers will begin to summarize their own design methods for virtual space design, providing their design services, thus fostering industrial development.

Once all this is in place, we will find that the real world has its own activities, and there are naturally spatial design methods for those activities, along with theories and doctrines of space design for unique spatial designs.

In the virtual world, there are also its own native unique activities, a unique design methodology, and its own unique design industry and practitioners. Thus, it will no longer exist as a dependency on the real world but will have its own independent system.

Are the two completely severed? I don’t think so. After all, in the short term, we are still living in a physical state. Our thoughts merely switch back and forth between the two worlds. Everything should be seen as an expansion of the real world; we have merely opened up a new frontier. I do not expect to view these two worlds as parallel and independent; they should be adjacent, with the virtual world serving as a positive complement to the real world. The reason it can be a positive complement is that it has developed its own unique system, allowing it to provide an experience distinct from the real world.

The real world has a large "pie," while the virtual world extends another piece, expanding the range of human consciousness and opening up new frontiers of thought.

Having discussed so much about designing virtual spaces, serving human activities, and the knowledge/methods of virtual space design, this raises a question: Is it necessary to study virtual space design as a discipline or a body of knowledge? We need to discuss some fundamental issues.

First, let’s discuss whether virtual space design can be institutionalized. We know that the discipline of real space design has already branched into many fields, such as architecture, civil engineering, landscape design, and curating, all of which are relatively independent disciplines under real space design.

Can virtual space design itself be institutionalized?

Let’s roughly think about how to define a discipline:

• It is a combination of specific types of knowledge, where knowledge is essentially experience, or a cluster of experiences.

• It should have methods for researching this type of knowledge, having both a reservoir and its own source of water, which can potentially make it a discipline.

In other words, as long as there is an accumulation of knowledge and a methodology for discovering knowledge, these two elements can tentatively determine that this area can become a discipline.

What does virtual space design encompass?

First, there are some relatively abstract design knowledge derived from traditional architecture. For example, how large a space should be to provide intuitive comfort when people are inside, including how wide streets should be to avoid feeling oppressed by tall buildings on either side. Additionally, considerations for lighting and illumination in corridors should be made to ensure a comfortable user experience, including the design of building circulation. If it is for pedestrian movement, how should the circulation be designed to make using the space more convenient and comfortable?

Many of these are common knowledge in traditional architecture and are relatively abstract. They can be transferred to virtual architecture. Many past transfers have occurred, such as the transfer of circulation knowledge from architecture to curating, becoming a method for planning exhibition circulation.

The transfer of abstract knowledge is like a universal principle; it has a certain universality that allows some traditional architectural knowledge to be transferred to virtual architecture.

From a methodological perspective, traditional and modern architectural schools have different ways of observing and summarizing human activities. These methodologies are actually more universal; they are not limited to architecture but are used in many social sciences for their own disciplinary research. This means that at least in virtual architecture, there is a foundational methodology.

Furthermore, the field of modern architectural design education has accumulated a vast amount of software, hardware, and design methodologies, which can be transferred to virtual architectural spaces with relatively low loss. Even workflows for creating renderings and architectural visualizations are more suited to the needs of virtual space design.

From the perspectives of tools, research methods, and knowledge accumulation, virtual architecture already has the capital to be considered a discipline.

Next, how do we gather a group of aspiring students and scholars to conduct research, and how can the industry more closely integrate academic knowledge into the industry, targeting consumers and real estate investors to provide products better suited to the virtual world, thus feeding back into the academic research process?

As mentioned earlier, the current situation in virtual architecture has 20% knowledge and 20% methodology, while the remaining 60% is like a "rich mine." The methodology is the "pickaxe," and the knowledge gap is the "gold mine." Continuously using the methodology to mine new knowledge can complete the establishment of the final disciplinary system. I believe this process will be quick, as industry and era development are urging it to happen.

Finally, I will share some insights from an industrial perspective. This is also a summary of topics I discussed with friends while refining the speech outline, crystallizing points I want to share with you recently—"the mobilization of real estate."

This term may sound a bit abstract. For example, I might open a sausage stand by the roadside, where I built a small house, set up a small window, and placed three sausage machines to start selling sausages to passersby.

Has anyone seen a small house that can be directly mounted on four wheels to become a mobile sausage cart, like Taco trucks in North America? The front is a truck cab, and the back is a workspace structure, allowing the shop to open wherever it wants.

Common real estate is generally referred to as "immovable property," as houses are fixed to the land and cannot be easily moved. Of course, there are methods to move them; videos of moving buildings can be found online, where giant pistons and track mechanisms are installed underneath to shift the building. However, this can only happen if the building itself is stable and sturdy enough, and the cost of doing this is likely higher than demolishing the building and constructing a new one. Unless it is to protect particularly precious historical buildings or those with significant commemorative value, this method is unlikely to be employed.

This raises several issues:

First, because houses are essentially rooted in the ground, once land rights change or transfer, real estate will face significant risks from changes in rights. Although "sale breaks lease" is often mentioned in contract law and other debt laws, including that two parties' rights cannot affect third parties, the costs and risks of disputes still exist. From the perspective of low-risk operations in society, this is still not worth encouraging.

Second, why is real estate always mentioned? Because in the realm of real immovable property, land and buildings are one entity. If you want to build a house, you must first acquire land; you cannot build a house in mid-air. Even in mid-air, there is still land below, and the landowner can still assert control over the airspace. Therefore, it is inherently linked, like conjoined twins, which is why it is referred to as "real estate."

If you want to reuse land, as is common with demolition projects, the buildings on the land are either too old or have impacted urban development, or you want to develop more efficiently. I have no other choice; I either convert the old factory into an office (this is an old renovation plan) or directly flatten the land and build a new building. These situations make the liquidity of the immovable property market and the presence of dormant assets significant, and the risks also become relatively high.

Is virtual real estate essentially immovable property? Analyzing it, it is clear that it cannot be. Why do I say this? The construction cost of virtual real estate is very low, with most costs concentrated on design. There is no need for heavy lifting, excavation, piling, or casting, which are cumbersome construction processes. In reality, the largest costs in the construction industry are not in design but in labor and construction materials. These are the biggest costs of building a structure. Of course, if you do not consider the cost of acquiring land, that part is the largest cost.

In fact, when virtual buildings are dismantled, they do not waste building materials. In reality, if a building is tall and needs to be demolished, it may require blasting; if it is shorter, some demolition machines will be needed, ultimately reducing it to rubble or broken concrete blocks. These materials essentially destroy all the original building materials, leaving no possibility for reuse. It is unlikely to remove an entire wall, floor, or door, or even an entire room in the real world.

However, in virtual space, this is very easy because the house is almost modular. There is no need for adhesive or cement to connect two elements. You can dismantle it however you want, and after dismantling, it can be reassembled in another place without any issues.

Third, there is no necessary connection between houses and land. If virtual houses exist independently without land, as rooms with hyperlinks, can they exist? Of course, they can. By clicking a long link, you can enter that room, which does not attach to any land, floating like a house in cyberspace. This makes it clear that these houses do not need to have such a strong connection to the land. Naturally, they can be moved, even existing on a USB drive that you can carry around. How can this be immovable property? This is movable property.

From this perspective, land in virtual space is a "slot," and houses are "plugs" inserted into the slots. As long as the slots exist, various suitable plugs can be inserted. There is no mandatory binding relationship between the two.

What are the benefits of understanding virtual houses and virtual real estate in this way?

It allows the value of land to return to its original zero. Many friends currently speculating on virtual land may not want to hear this, but if you think about it carefully, this is the harsh truth.

Generally speaking, from the perspective of labor value theory and classical political economy, as seen in the thoughts of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, the income from land primarily comes from rent. David Ricardo himself stated that the rent of a piece of land should depend on the income from that land compared to the income from the most barren land in the country.

In other words, value is always comparative, and how does the income gap arise?

He also explained that, for example, if irrigation projects are built, or if there are worker dormitories and a series of supplementary structures, what are these supplementary structures? They are the capital I invested in the land; the land itself has no value.

When we want to buy a piece of land, we are essentially buying the capital invested in that land. In the real world, when buying a house, the cost of the house is one part; another part is the location, which is generally said to have good subway access or a decent nearby elementary school, or proximity to shopping malls and business conveniences. Whether it’s the subway, the elementary school, or the shopping mall, they are all capital invested by society, the public, and individuals, which has an external impact on the surrounding area, allowing everyone to share in the benefits of that capital investment.

In this case, when trading surrounding land, we are essentially trading the land gains brought by that capital. At this point, the value of land is naturally zero. If we go to the most barren and uninhabited place in Tibet and ask for about one square meter of land, who would charge you a penny for that one square meter? This is the reality. Or if we go to the Sahara Desert to find a piece of one square meter of land, its value is zero; no one would expect to pay for it.

After bringing the land value to zero, what do you think the core value of investment is? It should be the human labor condensed on the land, either as assets or products. It must be these things. At this point, we can view buildings more rationally; the building itself is what I truly want to invest in. How usable it is, how aesthetically pleasing it is, and whether it can serve specific functions are the main dimensions of my consideration for its performance, investment value, and usability.

Returning to the main dimensions, we need to consider another issue: when I no longer need to firmly attach the core investment object (the building) to the land, this is a good thing for place operators. Because in the real state, if I want to operate a virtual haunted house in the virtual world, I must first buy a piece of land and then build the haunted house on it. But this comes with risks; if the virtual haunted house does not operate well and people do not like it, I do not want to continue, and I have to find a way to sell the land, or else it will be stuck with me.

However, land is not inherently a highly liquid asset. This creates a heavy burden for every place operator to consider before engaging in a venture: do I want to spend a large sum of money to buy a piece of land for this? If the two can be separated, it would be different. I have a haunted house already built, and I can rent a piece of land, plug my haunted house into it, and operate it, paying the landlord some rent. For me, the rent is not an investment but a cost.

If the location does not have good foot traffic, I can naturally move to a more prosperous area, lift the house, and place it in a more vibrant location, paying rent there. For me, the conversion process occurs within the cost module, rather than considering how to dispose of an already invested asset that is no longer needed. Operators no longer need to consider this.

What is the ultimate result? The landowner enjoys their income, the operator reduces the burden of operational decisions and asset management, and consumers and service recipients can obtain the services and products provided by operators more conveniently, cheaply, and at lower costs. Overall, the operational costs for operators are decreasing.

The distribution of industries and operational activities in urban and community spaces becomes more flexible, preventing any particular block from becoming lifeless, like Detroit in the United States. There will also be no situation where a vibrant area becomes overly competitive, causing rents to skyrocket and costs to rise. After all, it is flexible, preventing those who cannot afford high rent and land costs from being forced to stay. Such situations will no longer exist. The urban market will become more flexible, and the experiences within the city will improve. This is my ideal vision of a "brilliant city."

Having shared so much, the latter part includes some recent observations on industrial development, reflections, and thoughts summarized from discussions with friends. There may be some inaccuracies, misjudgments, or even wrong directions in my thinking. If there is any inspiration, that would be great; if not, just consider it a dull listen. Thank you all for your attention.