ZHVR Group
Cybernetic Architecture Manifesto
Cybernetic architecture is the design and creation of spatial constructs that extend into cyberspace. ZHVR group aims to project our architectural vision into cybernetic architecture using immersive VR(1) as a portal and gateway, firstly by defining human-centred strategies and technological solutions, and secondly by evolving methodologies for virtual space constructions. Coming from our advanced research into VR, we recognise the centrality of the embodied human experience and we extend this understanding into the continuum of blended reality spaces that lie in-between physical reality and cyberspace.
Cybernetic architecture is not a new style.
Cybernetic architecture subsumes all spatial formulae and it provides further connections through digitally enabled processes. Moreover, any object can present itself in a myriad of ways in cyberspace, each tailored to the specific cultural needs of the users, disrupting the linearity of formal discourse in architecture.
Cybernetic architecture is not a revolution. It is an EVOLUTION.
The human body and human cognition are at the core of cybernetics. At the same time as technology is providing additional linkages to the human body through immersive gear, we are evolving a language for multi-reality reality experience.
In her book How We Became Posthuman, Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics, N. Katherine Hayles applies the concept of seriation to social processes. She observes that as technology and human culture merge, we embrace the process of seriation as a necessary step of cultural evolution: starting with adaptation to new technology, through mutation of existing processes, into progression and uptake of new means of technologically enabled cultural production (2).
Logically, information in VR is received the same way as it is in our physical reality experience, because it is processed through the “wetware” of the human biological apparatus. This parallelism was written about by Philip Zhai in Get Real, A Philosophical Adventure in Virtual Reality(3). Crucially, Zhai points out that the sameness is linked to the human biological reference system that informs human cognition, establishing VR as the optimal way to connect human cognitive facilities with information systems. At ZHVR, we recognise the importance of the embodied experience to the evolution of cybernetic architecture.
Cybernetic architecture is a theory of space-making that covers all aspects of blended reality.
Figure 1. Blended reality continuum of cybernetic architecture.
Figure 2. Bandwidth of an exemplary cybernetic architecture project,
situated along the blended reality continuum
Cybernetic architecture arises from multi-reality simulation.
Mirroring the individual cyclical cognitive processes of reality-creation, emerging technology is currently enabling the simulation of social processes on a collective scale.
We understand the individual human entity as an open system. In his book titled Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity, Thomas Metzinger describes individual human cognition as a cyclical, iterative process (4). According to Metzinger, the human consciousness produces a model of itself while also maintaining a relational model of the outside world, and iterates between these two simulations in a continual cycle, adjusting the models to maintain continuity of experience as and when any discrepancy becomes apparent. The complete model of the human entity is thus an assemblage in continual flux of construction and reconstruction, termed ‘malleability’ within philosophy, sociology and engineering.
ZHVR group’s hypothesis is that the above-described model of reality creation also applies to collective understanding and collective processes, such as architectural space-making, where the use of the result is also a collective one. In architectural production, the assembly and skillset of participating parties adjusts dynamically over time to the evolving needs of the project. The adaptable ecosystem informs the project’s cyclical redefinition as the project moves along its timeline from inception, feasibility and concept stages onwards through the design development and documentation stages to legacy and archiving. Similarly, the result of architectural production shapes the collective understanding of architectural space, which is continuously being updated with the injection of new technology and adaptation of creative processes.
Figure 3. Redefinition of AEC project ecosystem.
Systems providing multiple concurrent unique points of view inside cyberspace are enabling the simulation of social and cultural processes that until now have only been approximated using algorithmic modelling. These processes, constructed and reconstructed dynamically in virtual space with the help of Multiple Point of View (MPOV) immersive technology, retain their complexity and malleability informed by human interaction. In its extreme, the metaverse is an unlimited number of interlinked social experiments taking place simultaneously. Whereas the simulation remains virtual, it is used to inform actions in the physical world.
“Cyberspace is more than a breakthrough in electronic media or in computer interface design. With its virtual environments and simulated worlds, cyberspace is a metaphysical laboratory, a tool for examining our very sense of reality.”
- Michael R. Heim
Blended-reality space-making.
Simulation is not in itself sufficient for arriving at cybernetic architecture. From simulation space, which remains virtual, the collective has a choice of a certain bandwidth for the realisation of the experiment: the simulation can be brought partially or fully into physical reality.
Along the continuum between virtuality and physicality, each project demands a unique solution for the specific set of problems or solutions that it needs to offer. It may be decided that full physicality is not necessary for a particular project. Alternatively, projects requiring full realisation in physical reality may stipulate the testing of various variables until optimal solutions are identified through simulation and user testing. We aim to re-establish cybernetic architecture as an ecosystem with multiple interconnected parameters that must be calibrated to suit the unique material, economic, and cultural needs of any given project.
(realisation)
(authorship)
(project structure)
(governance)
(persistence)
…
physical < > virtual
client-driven < > consumer-driven
centralised < > localised
individual freedom < > collective benefit
persistent < > temporal
…
Prerequisites for Cybernetic Architecture
Immersion.
Because cybernetic architecture relies on the ability to interface with the sensorial systems of biological human beings, technological access for a user or client is a primary requirement. Cybernetic architecture also confers with environmental and cultural aspects of human identity, including any relevant boundaries and constraints, politics and ideologies, describing where and how space is negotiated.
From individual to the collective, the virtual presence of human identities requires the following:
+ Access to immersive technology
multi-sensory input fitted to the human form and access to the dataspace.
+ Perceptual standards for embodiment
clear specification of targeted sensory modalities and standards for stimuli intensity for perceptual intuitiveness and ease of use (5).
+ Onboarding and digital identity
unique individual presence with interoperability across multiple platforms.
+ Sphereing: privacy and IP rights and assurances for individuals & organisations
managing fluid individual and collective relationships.
+ Open channels for discourse
collective exchange of ideas.
+ Transparency and access to information
consent-based constructs rooted in humanistic values.
The aforementioned is necessary as a foundation for a shared immersive culture that honours individual space and individual rights, as well as collective dependencies such as meetings and information exchange. In order to be viable, emerging immersive technologies must be able to operate within existing socio-cultural, political, and economic frameworks. These systems are also subject to evolution, but they first have to be technologically initiated into the discourse in order to evolve.
It is essential that developing immersive technologies for the AEC industry recognise and uphold existing professional roles and demarcations, protect the IP of participating authoring parties, and uphold existing design criteria for physical reality (as defined in architecture by zoning, building codes, ergonomics, economic and environmental factors, for example).
Consolidated, de-siloed workflow and singular data model.
Studies conducted by the ZHVR group show extensive bottlenecks and miscommunications in today’s AEC industry due to the lack of a unified collective and immersive information space.
Over the lifetime of a project, data is passed between disciplines and their specialist software file types, often requiring lossy conversion procedures and manual re-classification and interpretation of the project assets.
Figure 4. ZHVR software usage mapping analysis framework, highlighting the full project ecosystem
Figure 5. Discontinuous proprietary software landscape of the current AEC workflow and ecosystem.
Despite fast-paced developments of proprietary software, the AEC workflow still lacks interoperability, because no single data environment is yet able to capture, record, and manage the full spectrum of data required for architectural production. Emerging software solutions focus on specific bandwidths of architectural production – whether they are geared toward early stage conceptual design or BIM project delivery, they are unable to incorporate all project-critical information into any holistic data model.
Figure 6: Analysis of emerging software solutions, 2021. PrismArch research findings.
Cybernetic architecture requires a collective and immersive information space for knowledge exchange and collaboration, and for creating holistic, multi-author constructs. A unified data environment experienced through VR facilitates meaningful inter-disciplinary discourse and culminates in the amplification of social aspects and adaptive collective processes for architectural production.
Cyberspace.
Cybernetic architecture offers the potential of translating desirable aspects of the current world scenario into the cyber world. It is a tool and a set of guiding principles for building cybernetic spaces as aspects of the multiverse. Cyberspace, with its human constituent in physical reality, creates an aspect of blended reality with the virtual realities remaining connected to the human’s physical realities.
Maintaining the human-centred focus is thus the link for establishing and allowing the autopoietic discourse to occur and for institutions, interest groups and demarcations to emerge. The solutions will vary, tailored to specific groups. From the standpoint of cybernetic architecture, we are not negotiating Luhmann’s institutionalised processes – rather, we are allowing the discourse to evolve in a new space that will need to provide societal functions for its human occupants and allow them to congregate as a more varied, dynamic and individualised audience. Connecting the physical with the virtual and transferring the underlying social and economic realities, governance will be a constant for which we take responsibility and strive to obtain the widest possible mandate.
Cyberspace is a new domain that will allow new clients and collectives to proclaim and add new cultural values and add spaces and layers to society.
With regard to the underlying economies, cybernetic architecture will encounter entirely new aesthetic parameters. Besides the aforementioned aspect of human-centred parameters – translating embodied knowledge into the virtual space – cyberspace dictates a new approach, with a different set of requirements and economies at play. These are two-fold: firstly, to create an existential construct that brings VR on par with the current experience-able environment of physical reality, and secondly, to create spatial designs inside the VR that will seek to optimise its performance in relation to the evolving hardware infrastructure and negotiate the values and demands created by its occupants and users.
At its ontological level, the virtual apex of cyberspace has four fundamental constituents: the immersed human, the design object (or object), the UI (including the system logic), and the metadata. As many aspects in physical reality are absorbed inside phenomenological perception or deeply rooted in traditional cultural schemas and agreements, Virtual Space will have to recreate those in order to provide for human interaction. Co-director of National Gallery X, Dr. Ali Hossaini, points out that the phenomenology of the engineered virtual experience will need to be grounded in neurophysiology and a clear specification of the perceptual systems engaged by the quasi-architectural space. According to Hossaini, this grounding is also what allows the space to evolve new modalities, such as flying, based on existing forms of visual orientation and proprioception (6). All the above are necessary conditions for cybernetic architecture to exist.
Figure 7. Core classes of cyberspace.
Microverse(s) and Metaverse(s).
The topic of the Metaverse is very much related to the SOTA of current technology pipelines – but even more so to the evolution of the information society and its marketplace. Starting with the individual, local virtual augmentations and entrepreneurial ventures known as ‘Microverses’ have shown the uses and benefits of the immersive construct. Sandbox Computer Games could be seen as the precursors to the phenomenon, and examples of active Microverses that feature user worlds related to particular PR initiatives and digital twins include the likes of Fortnite, The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), and Facebook/Meta’s Horizon Worlds platform.
These Microverses with localised uses and limited audiences are leading the way to the emergence of the Multiverse(s) – a blend of David Deutsch’s multiple worlds theory and the romantic, utopian vision of an immersive and global open-world, open-market virtual reality. Underlying the Multiverse concept is the adaptation of the global culture created through the internet’s connectivity and the technology used for digital currencies (Web 3.0, blockchain) and game engines. These advancements are supporting the narrative that the metaverse’s open-world constructs and all its assets can be given immersive but also unique, authentic and incorruptible qualities.
The above-outlined foundations for virtual cultural and commercial expansion are leading the development towards digital commodities and true ownership. While Decentraland, Facebook/Meta’s Metaverse, Microsoft AltspaceVR and other nascent metaverses are showing the difficulties dealing with this new domain and its audiences alike, the cybernetic augmentation to human societies and their collective realities is already on its way.
Endnotes: