The T-Lab aim is to explore how the collective and inclusive elaboration of novel digital territories twinning urban regeneration areas can support placemaking.
A “metaverse” is a fully virtual or hybrid environment (this is why we use the term “Extended Reality”, encompassing both) that relies on a combination of technologies (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence). “Metaverse” territories are still in their infancy and concentrated in the entertainment and real estate industries. The enabling technologies are R&D priority at the moment: as a matter of fact, running the metaverse race is an investment on future commercial opportunities in endless application fields, included the urban context.
This manifesto is the first step of an interdisciplinary, collective reflection on urban and civic applications of “metaverse” platforms. We are a diverse group of practitioners, researchers and citizens from different backgrounds. We aim to deliver the first design guidelines for inclusive urban metaverses, by working on the (so far) fictional case study of building a civic metaverse in Kaunas (Lithuania) that mirrors the urban regeneration area of Aleksotas Innovation Industry Park (KAIIP). By investigating the requirements of an inclusive urban metaverse in Kaunas, we want to highlight the challenges of deploying Extended Reality (XR) in cities through the lens of social justice. The Kaunas metaverse is an experiment in collective imaginaries through which we hope to inspire other cities to to conceptualise their digital territories as enhancers of inclusiveness and avoid technosolutionist approaches.
The manifesto and the related workshops and gatherings are organised within the T-Factor project as activities of the T-Lab “Citizen-led smartness” in the pilot city of Kaunas (Lithuania).
Rooting its action in urban regeneration pilots across Europe, T-Factor develops new knowledge, tools and approaches to temporary urbanism that can contribute to inclusive and thriving futures in cities. The “Citizen-led smartness” T-Lab is led by Futuribile and supported by the Service Design dept. of AAU. The Lithuanian leading partners are KTU and Design Library. Our work is part of the urban regeneration process of the AIIP area in Kaunas. This ancient military helicopter factory site will turn into an Innovation Park.
In the regeneration process, we are challenged with transitioning the area’s identity from a soviet military connotation to an “innovation sandbox” while activating participatory processes that allow citizens to appropriate and transform the site’s legacy, identity and physical space. Since the area presents a variety of legal and infrastructural constraints for exercising established temporary urbanism tactics, we look into digital placemaking as means to provide a viable meanwhile strategy for engagement and sensemaking.
The T-Lab aim is to explore how the collective and inclusive elaboration of novel digital territories twinning urban regeneration areas can support placemaking. Our approach combines technology expertise with citizens’ expectations. We will engage international and local experts in defining the theoretical and design framework while rooting the principles in the local context with a participatory process engaging local communities of citizens to build a collective imaginary for a potential Kaunas metaverse, utilising AIIP as a land of opportunities.
The project consists of the following workshops and discussions:
– Common Grounds: territories in between the space of the problem and the space of the solution
– Inclusive Urban Metaverses: The District of Ecology & Care
– Inclusive Urban Metaverses: The District of Pride
– Memories of Places never visited and People never met
A „metaverse“ as an ground for debating social justice
A “metaverse” is a fully virtual or hybrid environment (this is why we use the term “Extended Reality”, encompassing both) that relies on a combination of technologies (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence). “Metaverse” territories are still in their infancy and concentrated in the entertainment and real estate industries. The enabling technologies are R&D priority at the moment: as a matter of fact, running the metaverse race is an investment on future commercial opportunities in endless application fields, included the urban context.
We observe the growth of “metaverse” platforms, and especially how, in the public debate, they are depicted as the future of social interactions and as a novel form of everyday reality for our societies. Putting things into historical perspective, the metaverse appears as one of the newest in a long list of technosocial systems being attributed a salvic role.
Although the metaverse is often coupled with Web 3.0 and its decentralised paradigms for organisation and remuneration, the most popular use cases follow the extractive models that so far led digital technologies to exacerbate inequalities and social fragmentation. This can be observed at different levels: the operating systems (owned by big tech players like Meta, Epic Games, Microsoft, Niantic, Roblox); the financial models (real estate and art speculation, Ponzi schemes); the economic accessibility (the need to own expensive hardware – headsets or computing power – to join) the ergonomic accessibility (with ableism shaping all the interfaces) and the digital accessibility (enjoying a full and aware experience requires a high degree of digital literacy and skills).
Moreover, the mental models of the metaverse reiterate those of big tech and their social externalities: the financialisation of every walk of life (associating identities and tokens, forcing in-platform shopping to enjoy a full experience); the top-down design, in the hands of a not-very-diverse elite of experts (underserving women, queer individuals and POC, generating sexual abuse and ignoring how to protect minors in virtual environments) and anthropocentrism (environmental concerns have not yet reached these platforms relying on high computing power, new hardware and fast networks). Needless to say, despite this evidence, the hype for the metaverse will only grow, as it happened in the past for other innovations. This is part of how our global economic system and society work.
We believe that a healthy society is fuelled by informed debate, and is capable of nourishing collective imaginaries without digressing into dystopia. It is likely public institutions will look into the metaverse in the coming years as a tool to innovate their functioning, exactly as they have been looking into the digitalisation of public services for some years now. In the vast realm of the public sphere, we focus our interest on the urban space and consider translating its materiality into the virtual space as an ideal ground for debating social justice for our future society.
As cities across the world prepare for the next step of the “smart city” and look into Extended Reality (XR) as a means to provide services to citizens and optimise the city, our ambition is to provide the first set of basic guidelines to orient the Extended City towards social justice.
