An enlightening discourse at the Main Columned Hall of MAK, featuring Zach Stubenvoll, Head of Brand Design at Meta, designer Stefan Sagmeister, and digital artist Paula Strunden. This talk is dedicated to exploring design and engagement, particularly within the context of the Metaverse. Engagement transcends terms like fun, happiness, pleasure, and well-being.

XR Atlas is an educational online platform exploring the world of extended reality (XR), including virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), and augmented reality (AR). Our mission is to challenge the conventional view of XR as mere escapism and instead explore the possibilities of a more embodied and enacted understanding of virtual technologies. Rather than focusing solely on well-known technological advancements, XR Atlas gathers lesser-known examples from literature, film, theatre, and multimedia arts that explore spatial perception at the thresholds of our material and virtual worlds.

This talk explores how Extended Reality (xR) technologies are transforming our understanding of spatial design, framed by critical and feminist perspectives inspired by the female VR pioneers of the early 1990s and their concept of embodied virtuality. Paula presents her artistic research and the three xR models she developed as part of her design-led PhD to demonstrate how virtual and physical worlds can merge to expand our sensory and cognitive experiences.

Today, Virtual Reality (VR) is often limited to its audiovisual capabilities, functioning as a mere mode of digital representation. This talk expands upon this limited perspective by exploring VR's potential beyond sight and sound to investigate spatial perception's multimodal and synaesthetic nature. Instead of experiencing the physical within the virtual, Paula Strunden's work explores how to experience the virtual physically—with and through our bodies, drawing from the rich insights developed by female VR pioneers in the 90s.

Multispace exists at the intersection of the physical and digital, and in the blurring of their previously clear dividing lines. Multispace is not a single space, but a hybrid space where, in effect, we occupy multiple spaces simultaneously. Offering both a collective and highly personalised experience, static and dynamically customisable, and above all at the same time public and private, multispace lies at the centre of a set of tensions, concerns and preoccupations at the core of our conception of architecture as theory and practice.

A cross-generational debate hosted by Paula Strunden on embodied virtuality, gender, and identity in VR, building on the insights gathered from the Air AA podcast on 'Female Pioneers in the History of VR.' The podcast features artists and theorists like Brenda Laurel, Char Davies, Tamiko Thiel, and Monika Fleischmann and arose from a profound recognition of the often-overlooked contributions of female pioneers in the field of immersive technologies.

The article explores tacit knowing in architecture, focusing on how spatial perception is not just visual but also multi-sensory, involving touch, smell, balance, and more. Through an XR design tool, the article examines how immersive virtual environments can reveal and enhance subtle, often unnoticeable sensations. A case study, 'Infra-thin Magick,' demonstrates how immersive spaces can manipulate sensory experiences, offering new ways for architects to engage with spatial design.

A podcast exploring the often overlooked contributions of female pioneers in the history of virtual reality technology.

While the metaverse is becoming one of the buzziest words in technology, the collaborative online platform XR Atlas offers an alternative roadmap to enter and understand the history of virtual, augmented and mixed reality. Instead of presenting a comprehensive historical overview, lesser-known examples from literature, film, theatre and multimedia arts are gathered that speculate on human perception of space in the liminal, the gap, the in-between of our material and virtual worlds.

Die zweite Ausgabe der Manege für Architektur widmet sich den Technologien von heute und untersucht, welche Möglichkeiten sich für die Architektur und die gebaute Umwelt erkennen lassen. So soll die Lektüre der Beiträge eine digitale Mündigkeit in der Architektur unterstützen und als Anregung dienen, die sich rasant entwickelnde Technik sowohl kritisch als auch produktiv für die Gestaltung der Welt einzusetzen.

By presenting a series of 1:1 interactive models and experimental mixed reality installations, the use of VR in architecture is discussed from a phenomenological perspective and examined for its potential to facilitate more intuitive and embodied design processes. Paula unpacks the thought processes behind designing the tactile interface 'Je-Roaming' and analyses why mixed reality objects trigger paradox sensations.

This lecture explores VR's potential beyond its visual territory and probes how it can be used to explore the multimodality of spatial experiences and atmospheres. By presenting a series of 1:1 interactive models and experimental mixed reality installations, VR in architecture will be discussed from a phenomenological perspective and examined for its potential to facilitate more intuitive and embodied design and decision-making processes.

Today we live within a highly networked environment in which new technologies are increasingly blurring the lines between physical and virtual worlds. In response to London's rapidly growing housing crisis, the article theorizes the architectural implications of creating and co-inhabiting an interactive mixed-reality version of a home where space is born from the finely tuned sensorial interplay between the body and physical/virtual objects connected to the Internet of Things.