Pandemic, difficult time for everyone. We learned how to be online for online meetings in Teams, Zoom, etc. People had to start to work and study from their homes. Distant education and home office became normal in 2020 and 2021.

I was awarded by Fulbright Scholarship in 2021 for six months from April to September to do my visiting research at NC State, College of Design, Department of Art and Design under the supervision of Professor Derek Ham. My topic was to design VR Classes for online education in the metaverse, 3D internet. In near future we will use virtual reality and the online metaverse for activities like education, work, games, socializing, shopping and relaxing.

My idea was to design an interactive VR building, VR Classes, spaces online in VR. I called that Avatars in the Shell. I would put avatars in the 3D space, shell, that would react to the number of avatars in this space connected online. There would be fixed static parts, VR floors and VR walls floating in space reminding of physical classrooms. There would be a shell scaling its shape according to the movements of avatars inside. The big inspiration for this project was architecture,

the Hunt Library in the NC State Campus in Raleigh by Snohetta. I love the sun coming through the facade creating rays of light in the space, on the colourful furniture, carpets. I loved colours used in the Hunt Library like yellow stairs, magenta, red and violet seats.

I loved the robotic interactive enhancement in the library. I was also inspired by early abstract paintings by Zaha Hadid, media artwork of Refik Anadol, Frank Stella sculptures and film scenes from the sci-fi Ghost in the Shell, the city by night with giant AR images everywhere.

Renders are by Markéta Gebrian.

Reference images: 

FRANK STELLA - SCULPTURES.

ONUR YUCE GUN - BREATHE. 

ZAHA HADID – EARLY PAINTING. 

SNOHETTA - HUNT LIBRARY.

REFIKA ANADOL STUDIO - MEDIA ART.