Eco-Visionaries

In February 2020, just before the Covid-19 lockdown, Oliver Salway was invited to speak at the Eco-Visionairies symposium at the Royal Academy, London.

What roles may virtual realities play towards reducing global consumption and emissions? What can replace the invaluable benefits travel has brought us? Could we become satisfied with virtual bucket list thrills? And, could virtual realities become the final sanctuary of architectural expression? If the profligate use of resources required for expressive buildings becomes indefensible, could virtual realities become a legitimate low carbon outlet for all that architectural imagination instead?

Life During Wartime
I’m curious to consider what role - however small - the digital technologies used to construct mixed and virtual realities may realistically play in protecting biodiversity and reducing consumption and emissions. Since the climate emergency has been declared, this is essentially now life during wartime, when, like the search for antibiotics in the rainforest, every available tool, however counterintuitive, like GM Foods, or nuclear power, needs to be evaluated for its potential in this rebellion against extinction. I can see three distinct use-cases;

Potential
Where it can be used to drive efficiency As a documentary tool, recording what we may be about to lose. And as a placebo to soothe the transition to sustainability.

Caveats
I would say I’m a cautious evangelist for this technology, with significant caveats. Firstly, in terms of consumption, these are power-hungry technologies, particularly for streaming - though the energy could be provided by renewables and data centres sunk underseas for cooling. And they require yet more devices to be manufactured and eventually disposed of. In terms of resilience, is it wise to invest resources in vulnerable high-technologies that would wither the minute its complex infrastructure is turned off. However, we could store the data we collect for 13.7 billion years using holography, so maybe that data ends up being our permanent legacy, our epitaph sent out into infinity. And it is unlikely to be a universal accessible experience. Maybe commonplace in our more affluent society, but likely less so across the drowning and drying nations.

Responsible Behaviours
With those caveats in mind, we also need to consider what behaviours are responsible uses of this technology? What I doubt we want is this. A hellish vision of isolation. Our history with mobile devices so far doesn’t bode well. Interestingly when they designed the first Walkman, they included sockets for two sets of headphones to allow for a social experience and a ‘hot line’ button you could press to silence the playback while you have a conversation. Virtual reality headsets are now being designed like welders masks so you can flip back to reality, or at least back to your phone. And there are positive initiatives like the National Theatre's see-through smartglasses that enable rather than destroy social experience.

Softroom
My own working history with virtual worlds extends back to the late nineties, when Softroom were producing conceptual works published by WallPaper magazine. Which led on to working with the BBC, firstly creating a virtual set for the sports show Grandstand. And then to a long since extinct web review show ‘Hotlinks’. For Hotlinks, we visualised spheres of data as the home of ‘Nomi’ - a virtual assistant a decade before Siri. Nomy could curate with a library space, and there was a take on the idea of nostalgia for a green and pleasant land she would never physically inhabit.

But the technology wasn’t really there twenty years ago. Everything seemed like a pale simulation, so we rather parked our interest while we began to build real spaces. Like the Belvedere in the Kielder forest. It sucks in reality through a slot, turning nature into a panoramic tableau vivant - where you really focus on the beauty and complexity of the real word of wind water and sky. And we learnt the ways of the museum world with the Islamic Gallery at the V&A. But in the time between, VR has evolved and recently re-emerged as a powerful tool in the architectural design process. It really closes a gap in the creative loop like nothing else has, and allows for confident experimentation. And as a driver for efficiency in construction generally there’s a very strong case for the value of this technology.

A credible mode of consumption
All of which is fine in specialised circles, but if these technologies are going to significantly help mitigate our mass behaviour, there has to be a credible mode of mass consumption. One holy grail is headset-free holographic display, and there are some promising developments in that direction. In their absence, the consensus is to place displays on the head, though they will need to be genuinely comfortable and not antisocial. But it won’t probably be a mass consumer hit until a player like Apple enters the arena. What we need are some sexy specs. Or contact lenses with built in displays. Which are promising in terms of miniaturisation - consuming less and less volume of resources in their mass production.

Telepresence
In terms of the war effort, virtual telepresence has a strong case as a substitute for public enemy number one, air travel. The latest generation of videoconfering is certainly adept at recreating the formality and tedium of a boardroom meeting. But emerging technologies in spatial computing mean that - if we can stomach wearing the headsets - we can have much richer, more creative long-distance collaborations - perhaps using motion tracking cartoon versions of ourselves meaning a lot less data streaming.

But how do you replace the hazy evening after the corporate meeting spent in a basement bar where the real relationships get forged? Already, hoteliers have cottoned on to the fact that much collaboration takes place in the lobby, beer at hand. So as well as the technology, we need to be creating physical spaces for virtual encounters that facilitate the nuance, subtlety and fun of real human exchange. We may also need to develop a new set of social skills and get used to interacting with a mix of flesh and blood people and virtual ghosts, like a high-tech seance.

Commuting
But ground transport is in total a bigger emitter than aviation, and commuting is a big part of that. Back in the 90’s we designed a concept living room for Motorola, with a prediction that you might have a blue-screen booth allowing you to work from home but meet anywhere. But it brings with it the risks of social isolation. With the rise of co-working spaces, I now suspect that the better outcome might be that you commute only a short distance to a ‘work-club’ offering social interaction, where they invest in latest technology and spaces, so you don't have to.

In the home
And then there’s the impact of this technology in the home, where it has enormous potential in so many fields of education and entertainment - and for social interaction with remote friends and relatives, but only if everyone in the room has their own headset - which brings us back to creating billions of new devices. So as I said, we need to develop a new social etiquette for these encounters, if they are to make their mass ecological contribution. On the upside, from experiments with my own family, even with an isolating headset, it can still be a compelling experience for all ages.

Teleportation
A slightly different use case is to use the technology to transport out of ourselves just for fun. For leisure travel, could virtual media ever be a substitute for a sweaty trip to magaluf? Well, I think we can probably replicate much of that on home shores through simple physical construction, especially if the warming increases. And perhaps it’s as an adjunct to those amusement parks that you will find enhanced experiences that combine the real and the virtual, to make compelling thrills that you don’t need to get on an EasyJet for. Though as VR influencer Nathie has been finding in China, I think the real experience looks more amazing than the virtual one, so let's not abandon the physical world just yet.

Tourism
For tourism I would say that virtual realities are a first rate second hand experience. But maybe that’s enough. I was born in Oxford, one of the many heritage sites worldwide that’s overrun by tour parties.  Instead, virtual guided tours could be a real blessing. But of course as well as overtourism, there's the fact that many sites can only be maintained and local economies preserved thanks to tourists spending. On balance though the potential is great. And in some ways the virtual is superior, as you have the place to yourselves and can it can be enriched with interpretation. And maybe the locals get the digital rights, just as the Guggenheim Bilbao protects its image through photographic copyright.

Bucket Lists
And then there’s the extreme consumption of bucket list thrills to tackle. Again, great potential for VR as a substitute. This is me landing the space shuttle, which I know is not a terribly useful skill anymore, but I can at least claim to be able to land it while drunk, which lets face it wouldn’t be so fun in reality. Or how about virtually climbing Everest. No airfare, no queues, no tents, no bags of waste, no frostbite, no frozen corpses to tiptoe past. Like reality but nowhere near as cold. The copy sounds better. And obviously you click straight to the summit. I've taken in the view from the virtual peak, and it's very impressive - though surprisingly small, and I was very happy not to blow my carbon footprint to do so. And the best thing is that like a child with a bed-time story, when you’re finished you can just say “again!”. So I did laugh to see this corroboration in the esteemed peer-reviewed journal the Daily Mail. I'm sure those same snowflakes would be very happy to climb Snowden in their living room.

A record of loss and transformation
Ultimately, first had experiences of reality are superior, but even as a copy or simulation, digital technologies are unparalleled at documenting what we are losing. Take this virtual simulation of the Titanic for example. For a technology only just maturing, its incredibly powerful to roam around the decks, wander up the infamous Kate Winslet staircase in all its pre-iceberg Edwardian glory, and even be able to inspect the menus in the first class dining room. That’s somewhere I could never have gone in reality of course, but closer to home ScanLab Projects documented the transformation of my alma mater, the Bartlett School of Architecture. They beautifully captured the place I knew in the heady days of BritPop as well as the world-leading institution it has become. What particularly captivates me is where they scanned the student workspaces, showing how this technology has the power to record even the most subtle, ephemeral traces of human activity.

Education and Museology
So as a result, I would argue that VR shows great value for the fields of education and museums in this time of crisis. As an alternative to producing billions of new devices for the individual, perhaps a better, more democratic deployment is in public locations, as the BBC have trialled in libraries. For museum curators, they now have the most amazing immersive medium for sharing stories, and there’s the prospect of scanning our imperial loot and sending it back home.

A Virtual Museum of Mankind
Perhaps, like the seed banks, it's time to invest in a virtual Museum of Mankind. There was just such a Museum once, and for me a powerful childhood memory was visiting the now sadly extinct but unforgettable Museum of Mankind, on this very site in Burlington Gardens. It was famous and rightly popular for its ‘as if you were nearly there’ shows, where set-builders created life size walk-throughs of exotic places. I vividly remember turning a corner and finding myself transported into a Yemeni souk. I could only find one black and white picture, but what I recall was the subtle effect of light and shadow they had recreated.

The Museum of Mankind was eventually reabsorbed into the British Museum itself leaving little trace. But I’d love to see it reanimated and given centre stage using virtual media. At the heart of the BM sits the problematic Reading Room, restricted in Museum functionality by its listed interior. But substitute VR scholars for the old readers and the desks suddenly make sense again. I'm imagining the room filled with ‘readers’ immersed in quiet virtual reality study. And then there’s the crypt below. I could see there being an expanded digital centre beneath the reading room, full of virtual reality 'caves' for group exploration ... like a magic carpet ride. And just maybe, holographically stored on glass, this data is the epitaph we send out into the cosmos.

The end of Architecture as we knew it
Finally, I have to say I wonder if the new climate imperative spells and end for architecture as we have come to know it. Of course there will still be construction, protecting the humans against an increasingly hostile climate. But does it matter what it looks like? Designing for Descent has to be the spirit of our age.. As we reach the end of the line of our exploitative mode of living, we’re going to have to get a lot leaner and more efficient in terms of what we create. So a lot of the great works of architecture we see today seem to me increasingly like brilliant answers to the wrong questions.

When I first saw this detail of OMA’s CCTV building I was excited to see almost ugly raw structural expression that wasn’t wasting resources on pleasing humans. But of course, in that case, all that raw decorative economy is actually only to serve a ridiculously wasteful expressive purpose. So there’s a recalibration of aesthetics that’s yet to happen. But it’s unlikely to be pretty. Maybe you can make all expressive bits from recycled materials, But even so it still reeks of tin-eared conspicuous consumption - like the extravagant folds of fabric in a fifteenth century portrait. But where do you stop with austerity? Chop off those extravagant serifs and you could save 10% of the worlds ink.

The loose fit shed
Architecture seems to be converging on a solution, where most human activity could be housed in an efficient shed, just slightly oversized enough to provide the flexibility to accommodate change of use over time. Built to last, but ideally not from concrete but from something renewable and low carbon like a timber gridshell. And then maybe you have a cap-and-trade where we collectively decide to blow some of the carbon budget on the occasional delightful hamster-wheel in our sustainable habitat.

Architecture without architects
This in turn raises the question as to whether there will be now much work for architects at all. If efficiency becomes the driver it’s a task that’s possibly beyond human. Quite a lot of the analytical and specification tasks could - or should - be done by AI systems. So far these are tools to aid human architects. But perhaps not for long. Let’s just hope we teach them a full range of positive human values.

An architecture of pure emotion
If this is the end of the history of expressive architecture, could virtual realities become a legitimate low carbon outlet for all that architectural imagination instead? Unleashed of the burdens of environmental responsibility, there exists the potential for architectures of pure emotion to emerge. Maybe architecture becomes a disembodied virtual artform - low on firmness and commodity but high on delight. Or perhaps as has been argued, architects (well a couple of dozen or so) become the builders of extraordinary worlds for the entertainment industry.

But can it transcend art and incorporate utility? For those looking through their augmented reality glasses, it's possible that architecture could become a decorative skin overlaid on the loose fit sheds as a placebo against the asceticism. And it doesn’t need to be one size fits all. We can all wander round in our own personalised pleasuredomes. No more aesthetic battles with English Heritage or Donald Trump. So one individual might choose to overlay a parametric utopia, while their companion experiences a rose-tinted period nostalgia.

Declutter Down
But - being careful what we wish for - it could all get pretty dystopian pretty quickly. Like in this brilliant visualisation of hyperreality by Keiichi Matsuda. Where a mundane urban world is overlaid with a personalised, decorative skin. It's a visual experience teeming with information overload, advertising, entertainment, statistics and digital cats the size of skyscrapers. When you’re landing the space shuttle, there's a particular moment called ‘declutter down’ where the head-up display simplifies at 3,000 feet. Which raises the tantalising prospect that if we were able to shunt all of the disposable human-centric ephemera of our surroundings onto a sustainable digital layer ... as well as reducing consumption and waste, we could gain the option to turn all of that noise off.

But perhaps we still need that layer for now as a crutch. An opiate that soothes our transition from our stratospheric levels of consumption and emission down to safer ground. We clearly now have the imperative to find solutions. And we now have some of the initiatives - like flightshaming, or the circular economy or VR to guide us. But what is often missing so far is the mass implementation to effect real change.

In these times it’s hard to make the case for virtual and mixed realities as a luxury art form worth indulging. But maybe they actually can help us in achieving a powered, unchaotic descent. And they can certainly assist in preserving a facsimile - however diminished - of what we are giving up en route to our revised destination, which I believe alone it may be worth the investment.