From schools to museums to houses to cities, architects, for long, have been designing spaces around us. With the world starting to merge seamlessly from the physical to the meta, it seems like they are now in demand to design spaces in the virtual world too.
An architect’s understanding of 3D space is a much sought after skill by several XR (extended reality) start-ups today to design their simulated environments. Many of them have a good number of architects in their design teams.
With the industry getting saturated and conventional jobs becoming hard to come by, many young architects too find openings in the XR space attractive.
Ashwin Jaishanker | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Designing for 3D
At Bengaluru-based XR start-up AutoVRse the design team is comprised mostly of architects.
“That is one of the things that has helped us ensure our design is good,” says Ashwin Jaishanker, co-founder of the start-up which currently has around 70 clients including Bosch, Volvo, Shell, IFB, TATA Motors, TATA Power & Energy, and Ultratech among others
According to him, VR or virtual reality is the next wave of technology, and it is important to generate awareness on the hiring side too. Multiple reports suggests that the global VR market size is expected to cross $200 billion by 2030.
“If you look at the technology prior to this, mobile apps were the major thing and developers were the most critical skillset. But VR is different and it requires a lot more architects,” he notes.
But what makes architects so dear to the VR industry?
Their “intuitive understanding of designing a 3D space”, says Jaishanker.
“Their training is about how to design a 3D space. Whereas, if you look at the traditional designers who work at tech companies, they are trained to design for a frame. The guidelines of UI/UX designing get them more accustomed to thinking within the frame of a screen,” he notes, sharing an interesting anecdote.
Serendipitous solution
In the initial days of AutoVRse, the team was looking for someone who had a good understanding of design and 3D, but didn’t have the budget to hire leading interaction designers. Eventually, they came across an architect who was trying to make it in the gaming space and brought him on board as their first designer.
“The point of realization that we stumbled onto the perfect solution came much later,” recollects Jaishanker.
“Three or four years after hiring him, we reached that point where we could hire interaction designers and we started interviewing people from more established design schools. We would give them the same test as architects. But their responses lacked one fundamental understanding, a sense of spatial design,” says Jaishanker who is quick to add that there could be exceptions.
He feels that an architect’s ability to design a space in the real world so as to ensure a good flow of people is easily transferable to virtual reality.
“The approach of interaction designers and UI/UX designers is very much biased by a ‘mobile perspective’ – for example to minimize the time taken to do a certain interaction on the phone - as opposed to making it a joyful space to exist in and meet other people in,” he notes.
S.N. Vinutha | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRAGEMENT
Newer possibilities
S.N. Vinutha, assistant professor at Dayananda Sagar College of Architecture, external consultant at IIHS and Partner Architect at Studio Vinami, feels that the XR industry could open new possibilities for the architect community which she feels is equipped to do any creative or design-based job.
“As students, we were told that architects are jack of all trades and master of none. We understand something about everything. We study art, environment, climate, topography, landscape, people’s psychology, how the spaces affect your everyday life… So, I think our perspective are broader,” she notes.’
There is one problem though. The industry is saturated.
“There are so many students graduating, but there’s hardly any work. Even in places like Bengaluru and the metropolitan cities, architecture firms are doing less architecture and more interior design. It’s all high-rise now and you can’t get a chunk of land to do architecture in its real sense,” says Vinutha who adds that several architects have taken to photography, UI/UX design, coding and so on.
Some start their own firms and studios, but not everyone has the financial prowess to do so. Many ends up doing jobs that neither pay enough to make ends meet nor appeal to their creative sides.
“So, if VR is offering a new possibility, then why not?” she asks.
Atish Patel | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Larger 3D community benefited
Atish Patel, co-founder of Bengaluru-based XR company InfiVR, believes that the XR industry opens up new possibilities for not just architects, but for a larger community of 3D designers.
“3D designers and artists including architects and 3D modelers have been into engineering and gaming until now. “But now, with the boom of XR technologies, that whole community of designers are going get benefited. There is a complete gamut of designers, right from architects to interior designers to 3D modellers, who will get these opportunities,”
According to Patel, around 30 to 40% of his team is comprised of 3D designers. They include architects, interior designers and other 3D modelers, he notes.
Evolving ecosystem
According to Jaishanker of AutoVRse, virtual reality also offers architects the possibility to work without constraints of the real world.
“We offer them the ability to do whatever they want and break the rules of reality also. The architecture industry has its own set of problems and is not always very welcoming to freshers. When we hire, we tell them that they are not bound by the laws of reality, and they don’t have to design plumbing lines to eventually work on the project of their dreams. I think that appeals to a certain set of people,” he notes.
While the hiring of architects to VR companies so far has been through direct applications and referrals, Jaishanker notes that company would like to do campus hiring too. However, there are challenges.
“We are trying to work with institutions and asking people to step out of the career path they would have imagined for themselves. We would like to do campus hiring, but architecture students in their final academic year have to do internship with a licensed architect, which we are not. So, we have been hiring through recommendations and from applications we receive,” he says.
Patel of InfiVR feels the flow of 3D designers to the VR industry hasn’t peaked, however, he believes more will start moving in that direction as the ecosystem matures. In the recent budget, the Karnataka government proposed a ₹150 Crore investment towards the revised AVGC-XR policy that aims to create jobs and talent pool and also includes plans for an AVGC-XR park.
“Lately we are seeing some good traction. In fact, many a time, a lot of professors from these institutes do visit us for conducting workshops, courses and so on. But still, what I see is a little lack in in terms of exposure and understanding. But as the whole ecosystem grows more people will start looking at this as a future and a career path,” Patel says.
