The top 4 ways digital interior design will transform the Metaverse
Brian X. Chen— the lead consumer technology writer for The New York Times, explained the Metaverse — a general term in the simplest of terms. In his article “What’s All the Hype About the Metaverse?”, he writes “the metaverse is the convergence of two ideas that have been around for many years: virtual reality and a digital second life….for decades, technologists have dreamed of an era when our virtual lives play as important a role as our physical realities.”
I’ll take this concept a step further — both the Metaverse’s immense popularity and the significant investment enjoyed is a precipitous social shift — a glimse into our collective future — a world in which our virtual lives don’t just compete with our physical ones, but actually outcompete them. If we needed Covid-era proof that our digital lives are permenantly becoming more visible, more exciting and more engaging than our physical ones, the metaverse is all that and more wrapped in a pretty NFT bow. Interior designers have used technology to bring concepts to life for over a decade. IKEA Place lets you virtually place true-to-scale 3D furniture models in your very own space. Designers offer hyper-realistic 3D renderings to help clients visualize spaces and concepts prior to real-life completion. Floorplanner, Design Files and Houzz Pro empower designers to create interactive 2D blueprints and 3D interior images that may be viewed from all angles on any device within minutes. With all of the Meta-hype, here are 4 big ways digital interior designers will transform the Metaverse.
1. The line between the metaverse and real life will continue to blur when designers leverage matter port renderings — Long used in the real estate industry to provide virtual tours to prospective home buyers — to create powerful 3-D renderings of your earthly home. Customization opportunities will abound with clients choosing to upgrade fixtures and furnishings within the home by borrowing design elements from other residences. Those big ticket renovations won’t look so appealing when a virtual replica can be had for a fraction of both the cost and the headache.
2. Tony Rodriguez-Tellaheche, owner of Miami-based Prestige Realty Group, has partnered with a start-up cryptocurrency company Vancouver-based Keys Token that wants to sell 8,888 digital luxury homes in the metaverse. A buyer spent $450,000 worth of cryptocurrency on a virtual plot next door to an exact digital replica of rapper Snoop Dogg’s California mansion, according to media reports. Too steep? No worries. Designers will create 3-D renderings of luxury residences that may or may not exist in real life. Why save up for your dream home when the perfect abode for your NFT collection awaits?
3. With ‘Paris World,’ launched in December 2021, Paris Hilton is charging players for a range of virtual experiences. All of which have been designed around Hilton’s own lifestyle. Celebrities and entertainers are rapidly racing toward the new digital frontier. Is it a stretch to imagine more stars collaborating with designers to create experience-based rooms and closets based on their own, real life residences? Not so much. Also, entirely original spaces could be designed for fan tours, events or to be sold as branded NFTs on exchanges.
4. Last month, online marketplace NiftyGateway held an auction called “The Shipping,” where 10 pieces of virtual furniture by graphic designer Andrés Reisinger were sold as NFTs (or blockchain-encrypted non-fungible tokens) — pretty unprecedented . They brought in $450,000 in 10 minutes. Reisinger is now turning renderings of certain cyber pieces, like his Hortensia chair, into physical objects. Furniture NFTs will become luxury collectible items featured in the aforementioned spaces.
Of course this is list is far complete and I’m confident designers and creators will impact the Metaverse in many unimaginable ways. Although the Metaverse is far from peak maturity and will most likely remain a buzzword well into 2022, creatives everywhere are viewing it as an untapped world of opportunity. How else do you think digitally-focused designers will influence the virtual universe? Tell me the comments below.
