“We all need meditative moments in our life, even in the metaverse,” says Jinha Lee, Spatial Cofounder and CPO. “As the metaverse gets increasingly crowded with excitement, we think it’s more important than ever to bring serenity back to the internet. We decided “home” is the perfect place for such experiences.”
Spatial Home is the first place a person will find themselves upon entering Spatial from a VR headset. It is your first destination, you arrive in the lobby, appreciate the sunset and the cracking sound of the fire wood, then look behind to stare at the waterfall (and get lost) which flows underneath the lobby towards the cliff. This space can be used as your office, a gallery collection, a place to bring others or a place to be at peace on your own. Intentionally designed to be a peaceful sanctuary, Spatial Home greets you with a warm aura, colors, and a flowing waterfall.
Designed in collaboration with architect, Sylvia Lee, this home space is intended to be calming — an antithesis to the feelings technology often evokes. In his own words, we try our best with visual technologies, but there will be some dissonance between what our physiology needs and what we can provide. That inevitable dissonance doesn’t stop Jinha and all of Spatial’s designers from trying as much as possible to soothe users' nervous systems as they embark on their metaverse adventures.
Spatial Home is just that - a home - that warmly embraces one's presence with an ocean view and a backdrop of a waterfall that drowns out the noise of this world. One can immerse in tranquility and wonder in the quiet privacy of an elegant hideaway. This space is available for use by anyone who joins Spatial.
We launched this space with the intention of providing a unique & beautiful home to everyone in the metaverse. Traditionally, architectural design and form have been inspired by nature. Spatial has taken that to the next level, making architecture become a part of metaverse nature. Jinha’s design goal is to make the virtual spaces Spatial provides to our users useful as well as physiologically healthy. People need their universe, their metaverse, to remember and be mindful of their humanity. Architects commonly follow biophilic architecture practices, for example Frank Lloyd Wright infamously always wanted to bring nature and architecture closer — the same principles can apply to the metaverse.
In the XR and metaverse space there is a responsibility felt as this new medium gains popularity. The medium is the message, the design of said medium can dictate the energy of said communication. It is critical that all creators and metaverse architects realize the gravitas of their contributions. The Metaverse is going to change the way people from around the world participate in their reality. Yes this is their digital identity, but think about how much time we are already spending online.
Spatial meetings are physiologically and psychologically better for us than being on video calls for eight hours a day. Bri Scully from Spatial describes how some days she would much rather be standing and walking around in VR, feeling like she is next to somebody. Other days it is easier to simply join from web or mobile. "To get back to a world where people are no longer so tied to technology we would have to not have a global economy anymore. We would have to go back to small villages. The metaverse is trying to make communication better and more human, not less.”
As all metaverses should, Spatial takes science fiction dystopias, not with a grain of salt, but as a serious warning for what could go awry. Just because there are obvious “what if”’s doesn’t negate the virtues of connecting humanity across the world with virtual experiences. Just because virtual greenery can never truly replace a real forest, doesn’t mean it cannot be a nurturing haven for someone who lacks access to that. Anand Agarawala believes we can think of Zoom as a metaverse. You're not really going anywhere together, but it fits many of the criteria. It's synchronous. It's social-ish, it's not really immersive, but that's just the medium. Imagine if the medium changes.
Spatial Home is just one of the welcoming spaces Spatial’s design team has thoughtfully created. Spatial Park is another great example of the welcoming nature filled environments our team works to curate for our users. All of Spatial’s default templates follow a specific aesthetic, to appeal to the masses because of their comfortable and humanity first design. Just by entering our Outdoor Space you feel the coziness and the flickering campfire. Mental health in the metaverse is paramount. While people can build anything they want on our platform, we want our spaces to provide solace. Starting with your home.
