Vice media3/18/2023 ![]() ![]() I’m especially disappointed because environmentally reactive elements can be quite provocative aspects of architecture in digital space, but they usually exist as storytelling in concert with a simulated ecology. VICEVERSE even includes a hyperlink which took me to the website of a simulated store located on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch where I was badgered to bid on shoes in order to raise advocacy money environmental consciousness is the logical veil of choice for eco-fashion grift. The ivy growing all over the building doesn’t sequester carbon or emit oxygen. An exterior louver system isn’t necessary because the sun doesn’t shine through the glass material, and even if it did, you don’t have to heat or cool the interior space. The feeling of a feigned concern for global sustainability resonated through the project. ![]() Caspar David Friedrich is assuredly rolling in his grave. Plus, the sun can set whenever I want, and do I actually need to mention how a green roof is mechanically not necessary in a simulated ecology? Even at the edge of the rooftop, complete with a sparse amount of trees, one can’t overlook the whole city as the build distance is limited. ![]() Why even bother having an inhabitable rooftop space when the build distances (how far you can “see” in the game) are limited anyway. The irony of having a green roof on a metaverse building is the most paradigmatic example of the failures of this project. The form is outfitted with opaque blue glass-like material and bright white horizontal louver structures, as if there was a need to shade the sun on the interior (there isn’t). The rooms inside of VICEVERSE, the witty nickname of the project, are filled with common office tropes including a ping pong table, a meeting space, a selection of suspiciously saturated ficuses, and a sloping green roof to top it all off. The headquarters is situated on an expensive piece of LAND on the northwest corner of a public park called Soho Plaza. I’ve never been to a building picked from the clearance section before, but this was surely that experience. I happily reconnected, reloaded, and finally emerged onto the parkfront property face-to-face with a glistening white cube inscribed with an inviting yet mystifying wormhole shape. ![]() The free and accessible servers were busy, something I am willing to deal with in order for this kind of tech to be truly available to all. My browser crashed continuously time and again before I could even reach the plot of digital property (LAND) where the VICE headquarters supposedly stood. Right away Decentraland hit me with a cacophony of failures. I visited and described the world itself once before, and despite the sour taste in my mouth from a bland and explicitly non-revolutionary visit, I begrudgingly invited my Twitch followers to join me once again in exploring metaverse architecture: (Screenshot by author)ĭecentraland is a browser-based game world where anyone anywhere on Earth with an internet connection can create an avatar and meet, talk, and hang out together. It is in a unique site where the weather is always perfect, handrails are no longer necessary, and the ramps don’t have to be ADA-compliant: It is located at 51,74 in the Decentraland metaverse. It isn’t even in the United States, but has space enough for the entire VICE payroll which includes offices in Mexico City, London, and Singapore. But here’s the kicker: the building isn’t in Brooklyn. It seems like BIG had an unbuilt competition project called TEK sitting on the shelf, collecting dust, so it went and found a buyer in VICE Media, a digital media and broadcasting company headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. ![]()
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