Architecture and Cyberspace:

Reciprocal Spatial Contamination

Abstract
Fascinated by the possibility of designing the world, human being has always searched for tools to
mediate this process. Cyberspace became one of this tools. Virtual technologies associated to
communicational technologies are changing human’s cultural, social, and material context,
consequently changing the idea of architecture itself. The decreasing material content of our activities
and their increasing perceptual, communicative and cognitive contents are drawing a new framework to
Sandra Oliveira Marques
[email protected] our spatial experiences. Objects, spaces, buildings and institutions can now be constructed, navigated,
Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE) experienced and manipulated across cyberspace. The particular focus in this paper is to discuss the
Laboratoire d’Informatique Appliquée à architectural aspects of the Virtual Architectures (VAs) and an initial framework for its design.
l’Architecture (Li2a)
École d’Architecture de Toulouse and
Centre d’Études des Rationalités et Resumo
des Savoirs (CERS - Mirail Université)
Fascinado pela possibilidade de projetar o mundo, o homem tem se lançado na busca por ferramentas
Toulouse, France
que mediatizem este processo. O Ciberespaço se tornou uma destas ferramentas. Tecnologias do
virtual associadas as de comunicação estão mudando o nosso contexto cultural, social e material,
Jean-Pierre Goulette
[email protected]
consequentemente alterando a própria idéia de arquitetura. O decrescente conteúdo material de nossas
Laboratoire d’Informatique Appliquée à atividades associado ao crescente conteúdo perceptivo, comunicativo e cognitivo das mesmas, têm
l’Architecture (Li2a) gerado um novo contexto para nossas experiências espaciais. Objetos, espaços, edifícios e instituições
École d’Architecture de Toulouse podem agora ser construídos, navegados, experienciados e manipulados através do ciberespaço. O
France foco particular neste paper é discutir aspectos arquitetônicos das Arquiteturas Virtuais (VAs) e esboçar
um quadro inicial para sua projetação.

1. Introduction
The use of cyberspace (understood as a spatial metaphor for the globally-interconnected
set of computer networks) is changing the architectural matter. Our aim in this paper is to
present the first steps of an ongoing project research about the reciprocal contamination
between two spatial realms: the physical space (architecture) and the virtual space
(cyberspace and its virtual architectures). The biggest challenge is to define a methodology
to identify and analyze (qualitatively) this reciprocal contamination.The difficult relies on the
necessity to establish a framework to design virtual architectures, identifying their vocabulary
(architectural elements) and spatial grammar in order to draw analogies (maybe in function,
maybe in form, maybe in symbolic content, etc.) with those of the physical architectures.

2. Architecture and cyberspace: vortex of perceptions, meanings and

transformations
William Gibson (Gibson, 1984) - novelist who coined the term cyberspace - had already
recognized some architectural possibilities of cyberspace. He borrows some metaphors
from reality in order to describe the spatiality embedded in cyberspace, giving to Case (his
central character in Neromancer) the possibility of seeing the real world as mimicking
cyberspace. The world of images and forms circumscribed by architecture (physical and
virtual) reflects values that go beyond the instrumental boundaries of the designing process:
it reaches psychics and somatic aspects of the human culture. Conceptual and pragmatical
links between architecture and cyberspace are transforming our perception, conception
and use of spaces. These links are based upon the new paradigms and behaviors related to
the notions of hypertextuality, virtuality and interactivity, which are contributing to the
creation of a completely new social and cultural framework related to our spatial experience.
Mutations in the concepts of space, place, identity and alterity are associated to the actual
evolution of virtual, informational and communicational technologies. Physical architecture
is progressively loosing its hegemony as ideal shelter to man’s activities - some of them
attempt to respond the necessities of a completely virtual world. Architects assume a
privileged position in this context: they are potentially able to modeling with forms and
meanings our environment (physical or virtual); they are at the same time producers and
consumers of this spatial mutation process configured by a vortex of perceptions, meanings
and transformations which is the structure of the virtual architectures.

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Architecture and Cyberspace: Reciprocal Spatial Contamination
 3. Virtual architectures (VAs): expanding the physical dimensions
Computers in the architectural profession has been largely used as facilitators, as tools to
help conceptualize (mainly by graphical representations) or produce a final object
(architectural artifact).Today with the role and characteristics of cyberspace as information
delivery (Whittle, 1996), we witness the emergence of an architecture which nature and
objectives are completely associated to virtual world: the Virtual Architectures (VAs).
These architectures are associated to perception of information as a spatial phenomena.
Marcos Novak calls them “transArchitecture” or “Liquid Architecture”, because they distribute
the notion of space and place through cyberspace. (Novak, 1995). Identifying some general
Figure 1: Atrium (http://www.guggenheim.org/
exhibition/virtual/)
characteristics of the VAs: they are visual, conceptual, psychological, symbolical and
metaphorical architectures. In the rhetoric of the virtual realists, they “are not simply a
mathematical space nor a fictional metaphor but a new frontier, a very one that was opened to
exploration and, ultimately, settlement”. (Wooley, 1993).

3.1. Designing Virtual Architectures (VAs): a general framework

Our focus in this section is to present some basic points concerning the design of VAs
which are helpful to define a methodology to identify and analyze (qualitatively) the spatial
reciprocal contamination between physical and virtual architectures. According to our
point of view, to understand VAs we need to consider some variable points which are
independents but at the same time keep a narrow synergy between them:
·Designing VAs involve both architectural design and computing disciplines.
·Designing physical orVAs deals with a set of relationships that occurs among people, modalities
of representation and the phenomenon of an specific environment. But in cyberspace, objects
Figure 2 : Venues (http://www.guggenheim.org/ can obey or ignore the rules of physics, and its users are not limited by gravity.
exhibition/virtual/) ·The constructability of VAs is based on algorithms rather than bricks. They associate the
synthesis of human requirements and technical constraints in 3D virtual space.The parameters
used to design and construct VAs go beyond those to design buildings and landscape, including
3D information visualization techniques. (Gloor, 1996); (Goulette, 1998)
· The process of presenting or communicating architecture refers to a kind of mental
activity for distributing knowledge which need to be rationalized into forms and presented
through adequate media. With the emergence of VAs we need to include cyberspace as a
multi-dimensional media embedded with experiential expression. It means that through
VAs the visualization of information stored in databasescan lead to experiencing a multitude
of dimensions in time and space.
· Interactions in cyberspace (user-user and users-environment) are not based on a space-
time continuum as in the physical world. A better spatial model to VAs should be based on
“our memory of space” and not in our perception of space. (Anders, 1997);(Goulette, 1998)
· Architects of VAs need to specify:
Figure 3 : Galleries (http://www.guggenheim.org/
exhibition/virtual/) · spatial elements (vocabulary) and their grammar (space-establishing elements); i. e., what
is a continuity or limit between the spatial elements, what is a public or individual place, a
path, an intersection, “indoors” and “outdoors”…
· modalities and levels of interactions; i.e. what is a place in these virtual architectures that
may encourage individual and/or collective participation…
· aesthetics and ethical characteristics...

3.2. Example of Virtual Architecture: the GVM

Unlike most museum’s web presences, the Guggenheim Virtual Museum (GVM) adopts an
architectural model. It is a virtual architecture (developed by the New-York based
architecture firm Asymptote) which objective is to do in cyberspace what Ghery’s Bilbao
museum did in the physical world. Defined as the “latest stage in the evolution of museums as
both: exhibitor and exhibitionist” (LangHo, 2000), the GVM goes beyond the wire-frame
models and fly-through that have until now been the basis of VAs. Its design attempts to
Figure 4 : Galleries detail showing the wire-
framing of its structure. The vertical bar bisecting simulate the viewer’s experience of physical architecture, which relies on, among other
it is a navigational tool that passes back and things, the “user’s sense of spatial progression, with a perception of destinations as well as memory
forth through the structure like a scan. The of where one has been (…) it attains a physical spatiality that brings it closer to an architectural
smaller images bellow show the different states experience ”. (LangHo, 2000). The GVM shape morphs constantly, nevertheless it has an
of the structure as the viewer moves through it. structure which is the basis of its navigation. The architecture changes according to how
(http://www.guggenheim.org/exhibition/virtual/) are used its three basic “areas”:

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Architecture and Cyberspace: Reciprocal Spatial Contamination
 References · Atrium – connects to the museum’s service areas and public function; information about
programs, events and exhibitions are found. (figure 1)
Anders, P. “Being there. Some notes on
a cyber real architecture”. February · Venus - links to other Guggenheim presence in the physical world (Bilbao, New York,
1995, http://www.heise.de/tp/english/ Venice) each one represented by a unique elevation; also contain a cyber theater and
html/such.html. (16 January 1997) other amenities. (figure 2)
Gibson, W. (1984). Neuromancer.
London: Ed. Grafton.
·Galleries – contains space for on-line exhibitions and artist’s projects, as well as archives
for past versions of the GVM as the project is updated over the course of three years (
Gloor, P. (1996). Elements of Hypermedia
Design: Techniques for Navigation and
figures 3,4)
Visualisation in Cyberspace. Berlin : Ed. Another important aspect associated to GVM concerns its impact on art, its reception
Birckhäuser. and production: “ The GVM can bring us back to the original purpose of art : to be about
Goulette, J.-P. et Oliveira Marques, S. experience.The same ambition could apply to architecture”.(LangHo, 2000) Emerging from the
(1998). “Form and Information: fusion of information, space, art, commerce and architecture, the VGM not only provide a
Ontology in Cyberspace’s Architecture”.
compelling spatial environment to be experienced but creates a new design paradigm.
In proceedings of graphica’98, 2o.
Congresso Internacional de Engenharia
Gráfica nas Artes e no Desenho, Feira 4. Conclusions
de Santana (Brasil), 13-18 septembre,
pp 452-457. We have claimed in this paper that the evidence of the spatial contamination between
Goulette, J.-P. et Oliveira Marques, S. physical and virtual architectures, has already brought some structural and semantics
(1998). “Between real and virtual mutations in the way we mentally and physically structure space. These mutations are
worlds: design studies in cyberspace.” making arise a new conceptual and experimental environment to be explored by architects:
in Proceedings of EuropIA’98 : Cyberdesign, the cyberspace. We’ve presented a general framework about the architectural design of
Paris, 25,26,27 November, Europia VAs and an example: the Guggenheim Virtual Museum (GVM). We believe that VAs can be
Productions, pp 347-356.
submitted to Vitruvian principles: “commoditas”, “firmitas” and “venustas”, because they
LangHo, C. “Computer power”. May may serve a human function, be constructable in cyberspace and be perceptually pleasing.
2000, http://www.architecturemag.com/
may00/design/computer. (14 June 2000) “ … commodity will be as much a matter of software functions and interfaces design as it is of floor
Mitchel, W. (1995). City of Bits : Space, plans and constructions materials. Firmness will entail not only the physical integrity of structural
Place, and the Infobahn. Massachusetts : systems, but also the logical integrity of computer systems.And delight? Delight will have unimagined
MIT Press. new dimensions”. (Mitchel, 1995)
Novak, M. (1995). “Transmitting
architecture”. Architectural Design vol. 65,
As we further explore cyberspace, the virtual architecture will not be addressed as a
n° 11/12, pp 43-47. second order reality but as a reality within its own nature.
Whittle, D. B. (1996). Cyberspace: The
Human Dimension. New York : W.H.
Freeman Co.
Wooley, B. (1993). Virtual Worlds. London :
Penguin Books.

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Architecture and Cyberspace: Reciprocal Spatial Contamination