Physical and virtual density

Hello.
My name is Souichi Yoshitake, a planner belonging to NOMLAB who is working on client work and collaboration mainly on digital projects.
* NOMLAB [Nomura Open Innovation LAB] is a laboratory of NOMURA Co., Ltd. that aims to attract new customers with the theme of "digital innovation x place creation".

It's been a long hot day, and it's finally starting to smell like autumn. How are you all doing? In the midst of the usual scorching heat, I thank the person who invented the air conditioner every year, but the way I spend this summer was very different from usual. Because when I get home, the air conditioning magically turns on, and at 1 a.m., the lights in my room automatically turn off. And when I want to watch TV, I say,

“Alexa, turn on the TV”

Yes, Amazon's smart speaker "Amazon Echo". Amazon Echo has been on the market for some time, but buying an Internet of Things (IoT) device that connects to Amazon Echo changed my life. The act of pressing buttons to operate home appliances has decreased, and devices are now being controlled by voice and actions. Since the appearance of the Internet, the world has undergone a major change, and human life has become overwhelmingly convenient. These days, many are even trying to develop the next Internet. For a long time, the world was dominated by material things (= physical things). , is becoming a world where both influence each other. To put it in extreme terms, we are entering an era in which it would not be strange for all the spaces in the world to be reproduced virtually.

In such an age, what is the value of the physical space of space? What does it mean to fuse the possibilities of the virtual with the physical? Lately I've been thinking:

I believe that a world where all the physical will be replaced by the virtual will never come, and that the way the world should be and the way the space should be should be how to incorporate the virtual based on the physical.

About XR

By the way, do you know the word XR? It's been used frequently in recent years, and I'm sure many of you have heard of it. There are various theories, but this is an abbreviation for X Reality (cross reality), which is a general term for VR (Virtual Reality) / AR (Augmented Reality) / MR (Mixed Reality). These three are very similar in their way of thinking, and the difference is difficult to understand. There are many articles in the world that explain the difference, such as "About the difference between VR and AR" and "About the difference between AR and MR". ” was very interesting, so I will introduce it.
He defined the difference between VR and AR as the difference in CG density. If VR is a world with 100% CG density, reality is a world with 0% CG density. And AR is a world between reality and VR, where the concentration of CG is 99% to 1%. In other words, he said that VR and AR, reality are not separate things, but are continuous.

Relationship between AR and space

Against this background, there is a special feature on WIRED, which became a hot topic the other day. As many of you may know, it is ``WIRED'' Japanese version VOL.33 "MIRROR WORLD – #Welcome to the Digital Twin" published in June 2019. Below are some excerpts from that special issue.

This article caused a lot of commotion around me, and I started hearing the term "mirror world" frequently. This is because it hinted that a dream story that could only be experienced in movies until now will become a reality. The real world and the mirror image world exist so that they overlap. For example, by wearing glasses-like AR glasses, you can look into the mirror image world from the real world. And the future that this article shows is not a VR world with 100% CG density, but an AR world where CG density can be manipulated. The fact that the concentration is not 100% means that the spatial element is essential for AR to work.

At an AR event I attended the other day, a developer said something very interesting.

"Until now, I've been thinking about how to develop interesting AR. However, at some point, a big wall appeared. I realized that spatial design is essential to making AR interesting. However, I don't know anything about space design, so I would like someone who understands space to cooperate with me."

What I felt here was that "Until now, I have only approached AR from the mirror image world, but from now on, it is necessary to approach it from the real world (space)."
In an age when the world is becoming a mirror world, I think it is a very important issue to think about spaces that match AR.

Among them, the physical value that does not disappear

Now, here's what I want to think about from a different perspective. Why do we go to see cherry blossoms in spring and fireworks in summer? Why do we go to see our best friends far away? How would you feel if all of them were replaced virtually? I have an idea about working in the physical world while studying the virtual world. There is a world that can only be fascinated by a world with a concentration of 0%.

The virtual world relies heavily on sight and hearing, but we believe that space has more value than those two can make up for. In the first place, people are physical creatures, and sleeping and eating are always done physically. In other words, it is hard to imagine that the elements that are only attractive physically will disappear from the space and everything will shift to the virtual.

A virtual world created by the physicality of architecture

I'm not very knowledgeable, but recently I've taken a hobby of visiting Japan's representative architecture. There is a magnificent work created by a great architect there, but I suddenly notice something. Despite the fact that the physical world has no concept of the virtual, it clearly exists. For example, when I visit an old temple, there is a scene where I think of Buddha, and when I visit an art museum, I feel that there is a world of delusion that spreads out from one piece of art. In other words, the virtual has existed in space for a long time. And the architect must have designed the space with that virtuality in mind. I don't know if it's right to embody the virtual that has existed in the space until now, but I think that such a virtual exists in a good space. In other words, I believe that it is possible to expand the possibilities of space through virtualization while making the most of elements that are only attractive in a world of 0% density. As the saying goes, learning new from the past, I would like to learn about the past while thinking about what makes a good space.

The future of creating space as a medium

Looking from the current era, it will be impossible to ignore virtual technology in the future. I also believe that virtual technology will usher in a new era. In this context, I would like to create a better space, and eventually the future, by manipulating the density of the virtual and the physical, which cannot be achieved by either alone.

Finally, no matter how much you envision the future, it is meaningless if it is not realized. The only thing we can do is try to do what we can't do, day by day. In such a sense of speed, collaboration will be a great power. Together we can do what we cannot do alone. I'm still inexperienced, but if anyone reading this is even a little bit interested, I'd love to hear from you using the form below, and I hope we can create a better world together. .

Thank you for reading.