On June 12 2024 I gave a keynote at the ACM International Conference on Interactive Media Experiences in Stockholm, Sweden during the Designing Meaningful Social XR Workshop. It featured numerous project and research references which I have collected in this post. The YouTube video of my presentation is embedded as well as a link to view my entire keynote as a PDF.
When online experiences become three-dimensional and social, they resemble real architecture more than websites, and science tells us that designed environments influence our feelings, thoughts and actions. At the same time, it doesn’t make sense nor is it technically possible to recreate our complex physical reality digitally one-to-one. How then can we design virtual social spaces so that they are intuitive to navigate, comfortable to be in and help foster human connection and collaboration?
Using various real life virtual projects ranging from art galleries, exhibitions, nightclubs, work and meeting places this presentation aim to show how lessons from architectural theory and research in environmental psychology can be effectively used to create comfortable, intuitive and inspiring spaces that aid human connection and collaboration.
The unique advantages we have when designing virtual spaces, which inspirational aspects of nature including what types of environments we find attractive and what skeuomorphic elements from architecture that are still important for virtual spaces will be discussed.
Project references
Teleport VR for Dimension10/Varjo
Designed by Kim Baumann Larsen (PC VR)
Slides 1-4, 15, 30-32, 34
I Know Kung Fu VR (dojo) for HoloCap
Designed by Kim Baumann Larsen (PC VR)
Slides 14, 35, 40, 42
A Fish Person’s Place
Designed by Rikke Jansen (VRChat / PC VR)
Slide 21
CONVRS
Produced and designed by Ocean Visioneering (Quest - requires a personal invite)
Slide 26
Naer
Designed by Naer (Quest)
Slide 29
vsNorway (lobby)
Designed by Kim Baumann Larsen for Ocean Visioneering (PC VR, not publicly available)
Slides 38,39
Elevate
Designed by Kim Baumann Larsen (bespoke VR platform, not public)
Slides 48, 49
Unfolding the Universe: A James Webb Space Telescope VR Experience
Designed by Ashley Zelinskie and Metaxu Studio (WebXR/Hubs)
Slides 51, 52
Unearth Club
Designed by Rikke Jansen (VRChat / PC VR - not publicly available)
Slides 54, 55
The Fish Person’s Club
Designed by Rikke Jansen (VRChat / PC VR - not publicly available)
Slide 56
Namuanki
Designed by Kevin Mack (VRChat / PC VR)
Slide 61
Museum of Other Realities
Designed by Samuel Arsenault-Brassard (PC VR on Steam)
Slides 62, 63
Literature references
Shaped by buildings quote
Churchill, Winston (1944). Speech in the House of Commons on October 28, London, UK. (Slide 6)
Mental illness and schizophrenia and urban versus rural environments
Abbot, Alison (2011). City living marks the brain. Nature 474, 429 (2011) (Slides 6-7)
Landscapes that are attractive to humans
Chatterjee, Anhan (2015). The Aesthetic Brain, Chapter on Beauty and Landscapes, Oxford University Press (Slides 10-11)
Kaplan’s environmental perception framework
Kopec, Dak (2024). Environmental Psychology for Design, Chapter Five - Sensation and Perception, Bloomsbury Publishing, 4th ed. (Slides 12-16)
The impact of environments on human thoughts, emotions and physical responses
Ellerd, Colin (2015). Places of the Heart: The Psychogeography of Everyday Life, Bellevue Literary Press (Slides 17-18)
The importance of architectural variation
Lindal, P.J. & Hartig, T., (2013). Architectural variation, building height, and the restorative quality of urban residential landscapes. Journal of Environmental Psychology, Volume 33, 26 - 36 (Slide 19)
Colors and cognitive task performances
Mehta, Ravi & Zhu, Rui (2009). Blue or Red? Exploring the Effect of Color on Cognitive Task Performances. Science, 27 Feb 2009: Vol. 323, Issue 5918, 1226-1229 (Slides 21 & 24)
Stanford study on environmental context in group interaction in immersive spaces
Han, Eugy et al (2023). People, places, and time: a large-scale, longitudinal study of transformed avatars and environmental context in group interaction in the metaverse. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2023, 28:2 (Slide 27)
Spatial reference frames and the sense of direction
Jeffrey, K.J., (2017). Spatial reference frames and the sense of direction. Anthologies, Conscious Cities: Bridging Neuroscience, Architecture, and Technology (Slides 43-47)
Walls for improving navigation
Yang, Xiuting et al (2024); Visual boundary cues suffice to anchor place and grid cells in virtual reality, Current Biology, May 02, Volume 34, Issue 10, p2256-2264. (Slide 48)