Do you ever wonder what the hell the metaverse and web3 are? If so, you're not alone. We partnered with Canadian Interiors' Bevel podcast to produce this interview with Tessa Bain and Andrew Lane, co-founders of Digby, a consultancy that helps companies navigate the complexities of these new technologies and why people in the design industry should become early adopters.
Our goal was to decipher these new technologies to help you make sense of it. This is your metaverse and web3 101 crash course.
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2022 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd
Transcript below edited for clarity and brevity:
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
Hello everyone, I'm Arnaud Marthouret.
Peter Sobchack / Bevel:
I'm Peter Sobchack.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
You're listening to a podcast collaboration between Canadian Interior's Bevel Podcast and Revelateur Studio's Single Serves. Today, we're talking to Tessa Bain and Andrew Lane, the co-founders of Digby, a tech startup and consultancy for the architecture, design, and luxury industries. The topic of the day is Web3, the Metaverse, and NFTs, and how these affect the architecture and design industry. Thank you very much, Andrew and Tessa, for being on the show.
Tessa Bain:
Thank you for having us.
Andrew Lane:
It's a pleasure to be here.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
Why don't you start by telling us who you are and what you do in your own words, in three sentences or less?
Tessa Bain:
Three sentences or less is difficult.
Andrew Lane:
It's tough.
Tessa Bain:
I've spent about 10 years in the interior design and architecture world always on the supplier side, so working from commercial textiles to furniture, and that naturally helped me gravitate towards how we can apply this to Web3 technologies.
Andrew Lane:
My background is in tech consulting, brand building, and a little bit of talent consulting as well. I did this as an independent consultant at the dawn of Web2 and really brought some top Canadian brands online into the social media space. And so, we saw the opportunity to put those experiences together and really helped to create some education and opportunities for brands in the architecture design and luxury space who were looking to put an early foothold into some of this new territory.
Tessa Bain:
That was more than three sentences.
Andrew Lane:
That was. I got called out. I'm sorry.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
It's okay, nobody's counting. I'd like to start with a few basic definitions of what we're talking about. Can you tell us briefly what is Web3?
Andrew Lane:
I think Web3 is an interesting thing, and we'll find this across a lot of these definitions that the definitions aren't Merriam-Webster's quite yet. They're really being written by the people who are creating. And so, Web3 is fairly broadly agreed to be a combination of leveraging blockchain technology tokenization. A lot of people think Web3 is cryptocurrency, but in fact, cryptocurrency just leverages a lot of those principles and so the two have become more synonymous. You'll also find people who will call artificial intelligence a factor of Web3, and there's others who just say it's a tech emerging at this time. We don't quite know exactly what the definition will land on, but it's really about a lot of emerging technology that people believe will build on top of what we saw created through the Web2 revolution.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
What would be the main differences between Web2 and Web3?
Andrew Lane:
Well, Web2 is really about socialization, whereas Web3, the concept of tokens and the concept of decentralization is really critical when you start thinking about things like identity. Whether that's the identity of an object, oftentimes these uniquely identified objects are thought of as NFTs, but identity can also be about personal identity. So, we think of a decentralized Web3 as a place where you can own your personal identity, whereas in Web2, one of the primary factors was organizations like Facebook owns your identity. And so, that's one of the critical pieces that people see as a differentiator of Web3 and one of the primary ideas behind things like cryptocurrency that we're also starting to see applied in lots of other places.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
That helps clarify a little bit, so I'm glad I asked that question. I have two more definitional questions for you. The second question is what are NFTs? I think that's the most obfuscating of those technologies that people get really confused by. So, can you clarify that for us a bit?
Andrew Lane:
Yeah, I think that there's a belief that an NFT is a monkey or a piece of art that's put on the internet, and some people think it's nothing more than a JPEG, but really an NFT stands for a non-fungible token. It means that it's one of one, original piece that has been authenticated on the blockchain. So, when we think about it in that broader term, there's a lot more interesting implications for what an NFT can be than what we've seen really consume the media over the last 18 months.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
The last definitional question for you is what is the Metaverse?
Tessa Bain:
Ooh, that's a tough one.
Andrew Lane:
Yeah. Similarly, with Web3, the Metaverse is one of those places where the companies that are building are trying to define it in the way that really suits what it is they're trying to build and who they're trying to build for. I think the big tenets of the Metaverse is that it's a three-dimensional immersive space. Some people call the Metaverse the spatial web, that it has some level of persistence. It's an always on space in the same way that a store in the world or any building or location might be, and that it's a place where one or more people... Two or more people I should say are able to interact within that space. You'll get other definitions that say it needs to be tied to NFTs, to blockchain and things, but the broader based definition is really this idea of spatial web, taking what we have already as an internet experience and expanding it into something that's more three-dimensional and interactive.
Tessa Bain:
When I try and put it in simple terms and explain it to friends, I always think about all the different platforms that we use right now. For example, we could be on a Zoom call or we could be looking at a virtual VR experience and we could be on social media. The Metaverse gives you the opportunity to do all of those things at once instead of in individual platforms. And so, we look at it as that evolution.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
I just had my Aha moment. Thank you for that. Now that those definitions are out of the way, why do you think it's important for designers to understand the implications of those technologies?
Tessa Bain:
I think it's incredibly important for designers. These technologies have been underway for quite a while and you have very prominent Metaverses. In the early days of Digby, we saw this as a big opportunity for the A&D community, being mostly that there is a huge opportunity to create a presence and to stake a claim for people that are trained and skilled and have the ability to actually positively influence the space and the design of these spaces. And so without that representation, you've got tech developers that are actually creating the majority of the designs and infrastructure in these spaces right now. The architecture and design community has been a little slower to respond. And so we're seeing a lot more of that now, but in the early days, there was a bit of a gap there.
Andrew Lane:
Yeah. I think it's been exciting to see the early projects and I think that we're really starting to see the snowball roll down the hill right now, where the degree to which designers and architects from the more traditional space are getting involved in these Metaverse and Web3 projects. It's really exciting. Lots of new businesses and projects are launching on an ongoing basis. Scan the papers and you're seeing more and more of them every day, which 12 months ago, it was much fewer and further between. So, we're really starting to see that marriage start to catch on and it's something that's exciting to be a part of.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
Your answer was great, but it's a bit vague in my mind because I can't really picture what those new businesses and opportunities and technologies look like. So maybe, you can give us a few examples of what you've seen that seems promising or you're excited by?
Tessa Bain:
Well, I think we need to break it down and go back to the beginning. When we say there hasn't been strong representation, I mean, Andrew, you can speak about this, about the fourth grade art project. It's one of the best examples.
Andrew Lane:
Yeah, I think that where we're seeing projects come along is in a couple of different ways. There's instances where people are designing Metaverse experiences, homes, worlds for people who are interested in acquiring space within the Metaverse. Metaverse land is seen as a commodity these days, and there are those who want a house in the Metaverse and they want a prominent designer or architect to have created that house because it adds to the cache and to the emotional residence of that place for them.
We're seeing a lot more brands try and move into the Metaverse from a commerce space. When they're moving into that commerce space, someone needs to design what that experience looks like and how that brings their brand to life in a 3D, virtual way. And so, firms are being leaned on for those kinds of experiences in an increasing way. We're even at the NFT level seeing more and more objects and items that are being created from a digital standpoint.
But then, we're also starting to see those objects and items simply leverage that token technology to authenticate physical world items. We're starting to see people bridge between that physical and that digital world as well using this technology, and all of these projects are really coming to bear quickly because the reality is that the industry has had an awful lot of three-dimensional digital design be a part of the projects that they've developed for the real world for a very long time.
Of the early part of 2022, one of the more prominent projects was the Bjarke Ingles Group designed an office for Vice in the Metaverse, which was actually just a project that they had designed digitally previously that when Vice came to them, they brought that to life in the Decentraland metaverse. It was something that they had already designed previously but had never built. So, we're seeing all sorts of different instances of that as well as completely net new designs and net new ideas coming to life at an increasing and accelerating pace as we come through the year 2022.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
You've already hinted at why it would be important for designers and architects to be involved in the development of those new technologies, but maybe you can tell us a little more about why this is particularly important, and why should they strive to be at the forefront of those conversations?
Tessa Bain:
Well, I think return to work is a perfect example of an application. If you're a commercial designer of a corporate commercial, your interest right now is in helping your clients. And so if they are attempting to get people to come back to work in a hybrid fashion, how do we create virtual spaces that could utilize some of this technology and create for better inclusiveness, let's say, when someone is in the office physically and then you have people there virtually, or how do you onboard people virtually? For employee retention, we've seen companies have a hard time keeping their employees engaged.
And so, these virtual technologies have actually been tools that they've been able to use to create and express brand culture across that in corporation. For example, you could see that in onboarding or we think even the opportunity for designers specifically would be to extend out their physical spaces. So, an investment that a client's making, let's say, in their very high-end CEO boardroom or in their lobby and amenity spaces could be somehow conveyed virtually and extended there, so that everyone, whether you're there physically or virtually, could have that same experience.
Andrew Lane:
A company like Microsoft that has a product like Teams that is fairly I think universally known, but also a lot of people would say Teams and Zoom and products like that have an awful lot of opportunity to improve, don't fool yourself to think that Microsoft isn't taking that Teams product and expanding it into this space and trying to turn it into something that's much more 360 and immersive.
I always give the example that a very unheralded application of Teams during the pandemic was when the NBA shut down its League, they actually used the Teams product to bring virtual fans to the game and be able to see the court from their webcam. And then conversely, the people who were playing the game in the stadium could actually see the fans on a digital projection screen as though they were sitting in actual chairs. That's an example of a hybrid immersive experience that's really the tip of the iceberg of where some of this stuff can go when we think about future work and collaboration.
Tessa Bain:
If I'm sitting in the shoes of an A&D firm, I'm thinking about the next stages of where my business is going and how I'm going to innovate. I'm thinking, "Okay, how do I create that value and express that service offering to these clients that are looking for this?" I mean, further in retail, there's been a lot of consulting documents out lately that show that a consumer demands a new experience for retail. And so if I am a retail designer, how do I start to communicate this to my client and networking group and say, "Hey, we offer this service and we can offer you these tools both physically and digitally to enhance your retail experience?"
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
It sounds to me that the most promising applications or ideas reside in the hybrid world, where you're in the physical space but it's enhanced with digital technologies, because I'm still having a really hard time imagining except maybe for a very narrow part of the population to spend their whole time in the Metaverse in purely virtual world. Is that a fair assessment and do you want to speak a little more to that?
Andrew Lane:
I think that's absolutely fair and I think that you're not the only one who has hard time imagining spending their entire time in a virtual world. That's something that is spoken about in any publication that we'd read about, any industry conversations that we have on the technology side as well is this is really about if you think about the end-to-end experience of your personal experience and your life, where are the moments of utility? Where are the points of utility? We learned through the pandemic that being in the office five days a week isn't necessarily the best use of everyone's time. So, how do we rethink the utility of the work experience so that there are physical moments and there are digital moments and we optimize design for both of those?
I think that you will start to see more of those in terms of personal interactions, in terms of retail interactions, in terms of educational experiences. There's really going to be a lot more focus on hybrid where people will be dipping in and out of these tools more seamlessly as the technology becomes better. You'll hear a lot about the Apple AR glasses and the AR glasses that people are developing. AR glasses are another extension of all of this that's really about, how can we more seamlessly blend physical and digital experiences to allow people to optimize their time and optimize their experience? Whether they're trying to shop, learn, play, work, any of these areas will be areas where we'll see disruption.
Tessa Bain:
It's a bit clunky right now. I mean, if you put on Oculus headset, for example, or if you put on any type of wearable right now, there'll be a warning that you shouldn't have it on for longer than a few hours and that's because it's too disorienting. And so, we believe in an evolution. I mean, it'll be interesting to see where it goes, where it'll become much more seamless in a hybrid layering over physical life, and the ability to translate in and out will be much more efficient and less barriers I guess.
Andrew Lane:
You didn't ask the question, but I'll jump in to say that at the top of the house, the amount of venture capital and technology money that's been put into this space, the degree to which everyone from companies like Facebook, which has literally changed the name of their company to reflect their bet here, to companies like Microsoft that I mentioned, but all the processing companies, they're all very all-in on this space because they truly believe that this is where the world is going to go. That clunkiness is going to fade away and the technology is going to improve, and that's why we're real evangelists of the message to the architecture and design community to get in and be a part of the experience now because there is going to be a time when the tools more than meet the needs for anyone who's skeptical right now and that time will come a lot more quickly than any of us will actually be prepared for.
Peter Sobchack / Bevel:
I'm going to jump in here because I've been listening to all this and as fascinating as it is and relevant as it is, I'm noticing that we're talking a lot about the value of the virtual world as a way to compress the distances between creative entities and collaboration and work together, which is great. But as we've already spoken about and realized, the groundwork for that has been laid already. People are not scared of Zoom or Teams or any of those tools and if the Metaverse just makes that experience more enjoyable, more practical, more productive, great.
I want to change the tune here a bit though and now talk about actual practical, or I should say physical entities, meaning products. We talked a bit at the top of this conversation about NFT. So, I want to bring that up, put it on the table for discussion, because what I've been hearing a lot about and what I'd love to hear from you guys is the value of how NFT can help with issues of ownership. We know that counterfeiting is a big problem in the product design world and this sounds like an interesting tool to combat that. So, maybe we can talk a bit about that. Can you open the door for us and explain how blockchain and NFTs can help good old-fashioned product designers who make a chair and then get tired of seeing it show up at trade shows or completely cannibalized by counterfeit companies?
Tessa Bain:
Yeah, this is a really great question, something that we're super passionate about. My background, I mean, I shared earlier, but it's really been in design furniture. Everything that I've represented in the past and everything in the future has a design story and it's authored and it's authentic. And so, this is something early on that we started paying a lot of attention to and how do we use blockchain and an NFT to show provenance on a physical product design. It's something that we're exploring and there's a variety of different ways that you can look at applying NFT specifically to the entire process, but this is just something that we have started early days investigating.
Andrew Lane:
Yeah, we're working on a couple of pilots with manufacturers right now around this. There's different ways that people think about it. If you're a product designer, you can design from the ground up the ability to uniquely identify your physical product. If a physical product has any kind of a unique identifier on it, it's actually quite easy to be able to translate that into a complimentary identifier on the blockchain. Really where we foresee this going is in a couple of ways, one, that you're going to be able to see manufacturers and designers be able to actually verify the product right out of the gate, so that people know that they're buying the authentic item.
We think that that's going to have an incredible impact in secondary market when organizations like a 1stDibs are going to be able to actually verify that this is an original design by this designer or originally manufactured by this manufacturer and that it's not a knockoff, because I think that obviously when you start to get into eCommerce and things like that, that's where some of that confusion takes on another level altogether because the consumer at a certain point is just looking for a certain look. When you can actually tell them why they're paying a premium and actually show that to be authenticated to the blockchain, we think that that's a really powerful story for the industry to tell around counterfeiting and something that, as I said, we're piloting and we don't think is that far off, because there are so many parties who are really interested in being able to verify that authenticity. We think it's going to be something that we'll start to think about in the industry from the very design production layer in the very near future.
Peter Sobchack / Bevel:
But where are we right now? Where are we now in this whole stage? Are there actual tools out there that small-scale, one, two-man operations can either buy or engage in or they can get blockchain? See, this is where I lose the ability to even articulate it because I'm not aware on how this whole thing works. Stumbling through the language as best I can, I'm wondering if a small studio, two, three-person operation can buy or have access to a blockchain technology that can do all the stuff you just said. That sounded a bit like the tone was we're getting there, but I'm wondering, are we there yet? Are we there now? Can we...
Andrew Lane:
Turn it on? Yeah.
Peter Sobchack / Bevel:
Can a Fig40 for instance, who does contract furniture for Nienkamper, can they turn it on sort of thing?
Andrew Lane:
Yeah, that's something we can turn on today with something as simple as an Excel sheet that has your order numbers that are being produced on it and those order numbers can be translated into effectively NFTs that would allow a consumer to log in with that order number and generate a certificate of authenticity that links it back to the blockchain. That can be done in a pretty low-cost way. Those costs drive down with volume, obviously. That's something that's happening, and the end-to-end experience of also integrating with the resellers is really where we're talking when we say we're getting there because what it really needs is the full ecosystem participating.
The way that it's happening right now is in one offs. That's very much where we're focused, because you got to start somewhere, but it's not a cost prohibitive activity at this point. The actual cost to mint an NFT is negligible. It's really just about making sure that you can also layer it in with some technology that'll allow the end consumer to be able to claim their NFT and have something that feels meaningful to them. That's really the experience layer that we're focused on as far as the pilots that we're working on.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
That makes sense to me and I see how NFTs would help with determining the provenance of a product or an object and that's very clear. Are there also opportunities for NFTs to help manufacturers prevent manufacturing of knockoffs, or is that something that's always going to happen and you can't really stop it? Because for people who want the real thing, they'll be able to say, "Okay, this is a real one. This isn't. So, I'm going to buy the real one and pay premium for it." But I believe that there's always going to be people who are going to want the cheap knockoff because like you said earlier, they just want the look or the aesthetic. They don't want the real product.
Tessa Bain:
I think counterfeiting will continue to be an issue until we change our government regulations and what we're willing to accept. I mean, what is it? It's within a 10 degrees variation on a product design in North America, I mean, don't quote me directly, but around that number, that needs to change. But I think that having the NFT as part of your arsenal to combat counterfeiting is going to be something that will be expected in the future.
Andrew Lane:
Yeah. Unfortunately, the technology hasn't gotten its law enforcement badge just yet, but we do think that the ability to truly show provenance is something that doesn't currently exist and it's not a difficult gap to fill with this technology.
Tessa Bain:
Having been in design furniture too for years, you take a chair like a Wishbone for example. Here in North America, you have a friend saying, "Oh, I really want this chair," and they've just put it into Google and the fact that they can keep the name, a counterfeit company that's creating a likeness or a replica can use the same name and design attachment, that's a bit of an issue. So, how do we use these NFTs and how do we communicate that it's attached to an authentic NFT and use that as a tool to educate a consumer? Because to your point, if you are part of the niche group that understands the value of design and authentic furniture and objects, you'll be already looking for that. How do you communicate to someone who just doesn't know and hasn't experienced it what the difference is and the value behind it?
Andrew Lane:
I think resellers will be incentivized by that because if they have that mark and that system is truly end-to-end, that experience layer is further built out, they're going to be able to charge a premium in order to ensure that the person gets the authentic good. I think that that's something that benefits the entire ecosystem.
The other thing that'll be really interesting about that is you'd theoretically be able to see the ownership chain of a product that's gone through a couple of different sales in past hands a few different times. That might become something that's really exciting. When you're talking about a particular piece of design that's been owned by a particular celebrity or whatever the case might be, some of those things could actually really help to spur an authentic resale market.
Tessa Bain:
Yeah, or even sustainability story. I mean, if you can actually show that an office chair has been in four different office locations before taken to its end-of-life post-recycling and you can prove it using blockchain, how cool! That's a great story, not just from the fact that it's really interesting but because we can actually actively show the path and the trail that something has been on.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
You've just alluded to the NFT's ability to demonstrate the chain of ownership and the whole history of an object product or creation. Can you speak a little bit to its ability to generate revenue and perpetuity for the creators? Because I'm a creator and specifically photography and licensing is always a thorny issue, I'm really interested in hearing about its ability to say that you're a creator and you put out some art out there, something that you've created, and people pass it down from hand to hand and that generating ongoing revenue for the creator.
Tessa Bain:
I'm going to let Andrew speak on that specifically, but I think this is a good opportunity to loop back to a loose definition of what Web3 is, and it's power to the creator. And so, it's creating those revenue opportunities for the original creator to see those in perpetuity over the course of that product or service offering changing hands. You can speak specifically about that.
Andrew Lane:
Yeah. The text behind the NFT is often referred to as a smart contract, and really all that's doing is it can be set up at minting, at the creation, to say, "X person was the creator of this and every time that it changes hands, X person is going to get 2% of the resale," or whatever the case might be. That's already happening in a major way in the art NFT space. It's been one of the driving factors behind the growth of things like the Bored Ape Yacht Club, which is probably the most celebrated and reviled NFT projects out there. But the reality is that the people who were the initial creators have continued to sustain a huge revenue influx through the resale at inflated prices of these products. And so, that's really common in the digital art space and it's something that we think has the potential to translate itself across because it is working as a model already.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
I think that's a very interesting thought because it will incentivize the creators to create something that has more lasting value. Not to say that they're not already doing it, but to piggyback on your example of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, I'm not particularly interested in that side of NFTs because the way I've seen it initially, it's like it's just a new technology that people are getting really excited about and it gets a lot of hype but it's going to die down. And so, what I'm more interested in is the long lasting value that creators can create and enhance or support with NFTs and get some of that back in the process. That's a very fascinating thing. Did you want to add anything to that?
Andrew Lane:
I think the only note that I would add is one of the barriers right now is there's friction points within the industry. So, everything from the manufacturer not having a way to individually identify each product or each batch of products that come off the line, depending on what their production process looks like, through to how the authenticity of that production batch is translated through any middlemen that actually bring it to an end consumer. From a B2C standpoint, this is a little bit smoother. When you start to get into B2B processes, where you have different distributors and dealers and different players like that, it can get a little messier to figure these things out.
We mentioned earlier the idea that there will need to be a bit of a conscious thought of production process from the beginning in order to really optimize how this will work in the future. I think that's really where one of the areas that needs to be worked through the most right now is happening is how is it that we are actually able to know that this one of one chair, it's tied to this particular NFT and these are the times that it passes hands. So, the actual development of that process is a data-forward piece that not all small manufacturers and designers have really embraced up to this point and something that they'll need to embrace if they want to be able to take advantage of this technology in a seamless way and create a great experience for those end consumers who are buying and reselling the products.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
I want to zoom back a bit and go back to the idea of Web3 in general and what we've seen with Web2. I'm going to use Twitter as an example because they're so easy to make fun of, but Twitter is generally thought of a platform that very few people engage in, but the ones who do are rabidly doing so and they spend all their day on Twitter and frantically twittering at people, getting angry and getting into arguments. I'm exaggerating a bit, but that's by and large what it is. There's an entire segment of the population that's not even on Twitter, doesn't even think about it. Is that going to be an issue with Web3 and are there ways to make whatever technologies come out of there more accessible, more appealing to the broader population and not just people that are into tech or into very narrow segments of industry that are on those platforms and use them regularly?
Andrew Lane:
It's a great question. I think that the Twitter example, it's a specific platform that you have to go to and that's part of why it's always going to have a level of adoption problems. There can only be one Facebook, and even Facebook isn't Facebook anymore. I guess TikTok is Facebook now. But Web3, when it's going to work really well, it's going to be seamless. And so right now, there are some clunky elements to it. But when it's seamless, you produce a piece of furniture and then consumer purchases that piece of furniture, probably the way they would have a warranty card. Maybe, they scan a QR code and it takes them to an opportunity where they click a really simple button and they're able to register their NFT.
When they go to resell that piece of furniture, the reseller sites are going to seamlessly accept some digital example of that token that's going to allow it to show up on that reseller site in a way that makes it really clear to all the end buyers that, that is authenticated. It's also going to transfer proceeds from that end sale back to the original designer of that piece. There's a little ways to go before that becomes a really seamless process, but that's when Web3 is really going to succeed when that is the case. I mentioned identity at the very beginning. You're going to have the promise at least that people will have the ability to really seamlessly choose which pieces of their identity they pass along in order to transact with a brand.
They're going to be incentivized to provide those pieces of information, rather than in the current state where Facebook knows every movie that you've ever watched and you're really not profiting from that in any way other than the fact that you can log into some websites a little bit more easily, but then they know all your data too. That level of ownership, that test mentioned earlier, will become this seamless background piece. If we go to the Metaverse example, the technology will make it so that you'll be able to much more seamlessly transition in and out of digital and physical interactions and you really won't notice it in the way that you notice, "Hey, I'm going to make a conscious effort to go on Twitter right now," to bring it back to your original example. And so, we really think that's the future state.
Peter Sobchack / Bevel:
I'm going to take a minute here and circle back to words you used earlier, which caught my ear and I've been noodling since we've been talking. You used the word ecosystem. Whenever I hear ecosystem, I think there's layers of engagement. There's animals that are food for other animals. Everything feeds into itself. It's an awkward metaphor, but I'm just thinking that I want to circle a little farther back into the chain of consumption, start with awareness because we're talking a lot about concepts that members of the industry, that Arnaud and I are involved with. This is beyond foreign. It's hard for them to wrap their head around. You're seeing us struggle even with the language.
But it's probably safe to say that early adopters or kids in their twenties or something who grew up with video games and whatever, this is probably a little more natural for them. I'm wondering how that could play into the next five or seven years as that generation comes out of design school and starts to start their own firms and this is a little more natural to them. I'm wondering if you can talk a bit about what you think how that ripple effect will change the design culture moving forward. It touches a bit on issues of recruitment and in a way, even if you want to expand the discussion to a larger form, is how design itself could be impacted and what industries will be poaching design, or vice versa, who design will be poaching because of an awareness and an understanding about how this universe works.
Andrew Lane:
I love that question. That's a core message that we try to share whenever we can is that to put it bluntly and flatly, there's no guarantee that in the future the architecture and design industry is going to be the preeminent place for the most talented designers in the world to want to go when they graduate school. The tools that people are coming up with, the kids that are right now making worlds in Minecraft and Roblox, the 12 and 14-year-olds, they're going to be professionals in that next seven, eight years before you blink your eye. Universities and colleges are already adapting to this. We're already working with a couple of different schools in our daily work who have professors that are creating incredible opportunities for students to create in these worlds for all sorts of different purposes. While we said off the top that there's the opportunity for the design industry to get engaged and start to build these worlds, that opportunity also translates to talent.
If the design industry doesn't embrace these tools and the most talented design minds of the future are coming up using them, what happens when they do graduate from school? Are they going to want to go to architecture firms, or they're going to want to go to game design companies? Are they going to want to go to the technology design companies, and do those companies start to take over the way that the digital world is designed? I think that's a really interesting consideration, an important consideration, because all signs point to the digital world becoming an increasingly prominent place where people are spending their time, even if it is only transiently. There are going to need to be people who create those designs and there are going to need to be people who think about the way the digital and physical worlds interact with one another. We would hope that this industry would be at the forefront of that, but there is no guarantee.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about whether you see a rift happening between the traditional aspect of design architecture which deals with the physical world, like building buildings and designing interiors and getting them built, versus the digital world where all those kids are getting involved in new technologies and designing offices and buildings in the virtual space. What are the implications for the more traditional practices of architecture and design?
Tessa Bain:
I wouldn't say that one is more important than the other and I think this goes back to our earlier conversation on firms becoming more innovative and how do you take value in both. I see them actually, from my perspective, being very interwoven. And so, using all of these tools would help the processes for physical buildings and physical spaces.
Andrew Lane:
You're seeing Zaha Hadid and Bjarke Ingels Group come out with these headline grabbing experiments even in the space. That's them also planting a flag and saying, "We're going to be a part of defining how this future's going to work and we're going to be a place that talent is going to look to, to come and be a part of that as well." It's interesting when you go on the Discord forums and in places that are talking about Metaverse architecture, there's always an opportunity to put your hand up if you're actually a licensed architect when you're in those forums. There's usually a reasonable 20, 30% of the people that are actually architects who are there, whether being curious or actually having moved and started to really, exclusively design for digital spaces.
There certainly are smaller scale examples, not just those big headline grabbing ones, of where that chasm isn't really a chasm. There are people who are crossing over it. But we do find broadly speaking at firms, whether it's a hesitancy or a lack of belief, that not everyone's diving in head-first. And so, there might be some who are a little bit left behind when it comes to that transition. That's not to say... We're going to keep building buildings. We're going to keep sitting on chairs. These things are going to persist. But there is a big opportunity, and I think a creatively exciting opportunity here right now, that we are starting to see large firms, we are starting to see individuals, and we're certainly starting to see young up-and-coming individuals exploring.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
This might be a question more for you, Tessa. Do you think the way of designing in the physical world is similar to the digital world, or are they completely different? The reason I'm asking is the architects are trained a certain way, designers as well, and they think in terms of, "We have to deal with the laws of physics. There's no escaping that." In the digital world, you don't to. You may want to, but you don't have to. So, how does that impact the way people are going to design?
Tessa Bain:
That's a really good question. I keep giving this answer to everything, and it's both. I think that we don't have to maybe define it one way or the other. And so when you look at, if I am a corporate office and I'm looking to extend my identity into the digital space and offer that service to all of my employees, I'm thinking about something that's not too offensive right out the gate, meaning, we want to come into a meeting room. I mean, Andrew uses this example all the time. In a boardroom, there's a table and there's chairs not because we need to actually physically sit in this boardroom in the digital space, but because we need to understand how to position ourselves in the room. And so, you have the opportunity to, again, extend something that mirrors a physical environment or is a version of a physical environment that you could extend.
I also see the opportunity for certain companies that their identity is a little more progressive or maybe it's edgy or they want to do something wild. I mean, they have the opportunity to then create something completely different and maybe fantasy-based and something that could be unlike anything we've ever seen here. The same goes to product design. You don't need to have a four-legged chair in a digital space. So, how do we start using that to influence our design? There's an unlimited opportunity there when you start to think about digital design. But you could also say... I mean, there's an example, the petal chair by Moooi with Andres Reisinger. He actually created that in a virtual and digital space first, and then Moooi picked it up and created the physical version when they didn't think it was possible. So, it really plays off of one another.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
That opens a lot more questions than it answers, but I don't think it's relevant for this conversation.
Peter Sobchack / Bevel:
Plus, we don't have time.
Tessa Bain:
Yeah.
Andrew Lane:
Yeah, that's the next podcast.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
That's all the questions I had. Peter, is there anything you want to ask?
Peter Sobchack / Bevel:
Well, yeah. I mean, if you don't mind, I want to know a little bit more about Digby. So if you don't mind, I want to put you on the spot. I'm curious, it's a two-pronged question and they're not antagonistic questions, so relax, but operating any company that's in this sphere, you're at the forefront. I hate using fancy words, but in this case, it's actually true. You are at the front of the line and everyone else is behind you, so to speak. So, it's a two-pronged question. My question is, what questions or... Yeah, let's just start with what questions are you fielding from your clients now, and what do you think that the type of questions are going to be five years from now? I know it's a tough thing because no one has a crystal ball, but any good business has to do a little forecasting.
I'm wondering, in any way you want to talk about it, how you're handling clients, fielding their questions now, and do you think the questions are going to be the same five years, seven years from now, or do you think it's going to be a whole new landscape? To add a little spin to this, I know a lot of the way... Arnaud made a good point about architects and designers that work in the practical, physical realm. Their questions are, "Well, how do I get this piece of lumber for cheap?" That's the same question now as it was five years ago, and it will be five years from now. Those questions don't really change. Is there an overlap? Not to just overload you with asking the same question in different words, but what are you getting now? What do you think you'll get in five years from now?
Andrew Lane:
I think that it's interesting you did this yourself earlier, I don't know if we'll edit it out or not, but understanding what the question is that you want to ask is probably the biggest thing that we feel right now, to be perfectly honest. We're helping people to ask the right questions for the most part because they don't know how. They just say, "This is something we want to try," or with an architecture firm, it's, "This company came to us and asked us if we could design this in some sort of a Metaverse. What do we ask them? What should we say to them next? Can you help us figure that out?" That's a huge part of what we do is just help people to understand what are the questions that they should be asking, because it's not about a piece of lumber. Those questions start to become pretty irrelevant pretty fast.
But it's about, what is this you actually want to do with this space? How many people do you want to bring there? How persistent? Is it going to be on 24/7? Is it something that you're doing because you're trying to sell something, or is it something you're doing because you're trying to create community and loyalty? Is it something that you're doing because you're trying to just be a part of this conversation and create some buzz for yourself? So, a lot of the questions that we're getting are just like, "What are the questions I should ask? How should I start?" That's really been the place where we've been able to provide the most value to our clients is to help them take the first couple steps, and then very quickly they start to realize that when you're designing for a different world, a lot of those constraints go away and that's when they can start to have a little bit of fun, because then it's when their imagination and creativity can take over. Would you add anything to that?
Tessa Bain:
Just that it's about utility. I mean, you said it. In other words, it's very important to identify the why and what's the utility that you're looking to gain. Is it exploring, or is there a true business purpose to what you're doing? And so, we start there.
Peter Sobchack / Bevel:
That answers the first part of the question, what you're encountering in the here and now. I feel like that's not going to change five years from now, even though the technology might. Andrew, to your point, if you're saying that you're trying to educate your clients to ask the right questions, well, that's the phrase that architects have been using for decades, millennia even. I don't know how far back architecture goes, but...
Andrew Lane:
Pyramids, yeah. Millennia.
Peter Sobchack / Bevel:
Their job is someone comes to me and says, "I want to build something," and an architect says, "Well, let's first start with the why. Are you asking the right questions? Should you build a condo on this piece of property, or should it be something else?" That's a random reference, but I'm wondering, to my second question, is there going to be a whole new set of questions, a whole new set of client issues you think you're going to be, hopefully or unfortunately, having to deal with five, seven years from now? To put it another way, is this going to now be so common that you're not going to have to teach people how to ask the right questions, they'll already know how to ask those questions?
Andrew Lane:
I mean, I think that the way we've set ourselves up will always have an element of that. Education is one of the things that we've really been trying to lead with as an organization. So I think some of that will never go away, to your point. But in five years, I find it really hard to imagine what the questions are we're going to answer and that's part of why we decided to come into the space early, because I've always really enjoyed being in a place where you get to be a part of inventing the future as it happens. I think what we'll see is, as these projects start to roll out, that where people want to go next, the questions will be leading us there and we'll be leading ourselves there with the questions. That was really inelegant. But you know what I mean. It becomes an interesting chicken and egg because we're going to build off of each other.
I talked about this with an editor a little while back. When they first built a shelter, there was someone who came in and said, "Well, this is great. We're not wet anymore. But we could really come in and put a chair here, so someone could have a place to sit and maybe we could do something to make the space more beautiful." That's really where the industry's early stages started to emerge from. We don't have a lot of shelters yet. We don't really know what people are going to do and what problems they're going to try and solve once we start to see people spending more time in these shelters. So, it's hard to imagine where the questions are going to go. I think that it's just going to be a really interesting evolution. So, I don't mean to cop out of your question, but I also-
Peter Sobchack / Bevel:
Well, I said it myself that we're not clairvoyant. We don't have crystal balls. If you did know where everything was going, you'd be rich. So...
Tessa Bain:
Well, that's the goal.
Andrew Lane:
Do you have the questions?
Tessa Bain:
No, I just think that right now where we're at in the industry is that the faucet's dripping. People are cautious, which is interesting because we in interior design and architecture follow fashion and we follow art and they're taking some really prominent positions in this. And so naturally, of course, we'll be walking behind it and catching up. I think the faucet is dripping. I think that very quickly, the faucet's probably going to turn on and that's when those questions that we're working with clients now where it's exploratory, it's with caution, is maybe going to be turned into, "Hey, we got to do this and we've got to do it fast." And so, I'm looking forward to that. I think that'll be an exciting time in our industry.
Peter Sobchack / Bevel:
Well, Andrew, you said it's important to be in a place where you can educate and help people who are listening and engaging to start asking the right questions. If I'm right, you're already moving into that with the projects you have coming up. You're setting yourself up to be an educator in the form of podcast. You want to talk a bit about that?
Andrew Lane:
Yeah. We've, again, thought of education as a real focus. We're starting a podcast of our own. So, it's exciting for you guys to give us a little bit of practice here today. But we're going to be launching that on the Sandow Surround Network with their team and bringing on some people who are doing some of the early projects and doing early work in the space, just to talk to them about how they got started and really to try and do it in plain language and do it in a way that comes from the industry. We don't want to bring on technologists or anything like that, but we want to bring on real people who people in this industry will recognize and respect and they'll be able to hear from them and understand what got them started and what they're seeing and what they're doing.
Peter Sobchack / Bevel:
That sounds awesome. Before we wrap it up, is there anything that we've missed? A Luddite like me who never played video games as a kid and barely knows how to turn on his computer, is there anything I missed in exploring this?
Andrew Lane:
I think you guys are hitting in all the right notes. To your last question, this is the early stage where we're figuring out what the questions are. We really appreciate you guys just bringing us in to have a conversation about where things are at. But I think Tessa's analogy about the faucet is a good one. We do really see the drips starting to come, and I talked about the snowball rolling down the hill I think earlier, but we really do feel that that momentum is coming on in the things we're seeing in the press and the conversations that we're having, in the people that are coming to us. We really see that there's an excitement that's starting to build, and when some of these things start to hit the real world and the value in the fashion and art industry is already starting to prove itself from a commerce standpoint as well, we just think that the potential is pretty limitless and it's just an exciting moment for everyone to get up to speed and understand how they might be able to get involved.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
I think that's a great place to end. I want to ask you one more question. What would you say to any of our listeners that are interested but scared or hesitant to dip their toe in those waters? Where should they start?
Tessa Bain:
I think the easiest answer would be to just start. Google it. Start reading articles. Start listening to podcasts like this one. Join different Metaverse platforms and just play around and see what it's like. Be open-minded and continue to research.
Andrew Lane:
Yeah, absolutely. You're not going to break anything. Well, we've been playing Roblox lately and just going to collect coins. The things aren't meant to be or built to be scary. Everyone is pushing in the direction of making everything as inclusive as possible. There's nothing that you're going to hurt yourself with by taking a stab and by trying. I think people say there's no silly questions. Definitely feel that way. Ask questions to people in your network who you know. We're always happy to talk to anybody, but there's lots of people out there who are happy to answer a question because it is new and by that token, it's also not defined, which is maybe the coolest part is you may feel like you're behind right now, but 12 months from now, you could be defining the future because you just gave yourself the chance to do that. That's really the stage that we're at. There aren't really rules. There aren't really full definitions. And so, we can just go and play and create. I think that that's the spirit that this industry has built on and that's really exciting.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
Where can people find you?
Andrew Lane:
You can find us at our website, houseofdigby.com. Soon, you'll be able to find us on the Sandow Surround Podcast Network.
Tessa Bain:
Feel free to always reach out to us on LinkedIn as well.
Andrew Lane:
Yeah, absolutely. We try to be pretty accessible and appreciate the opportunity to come and talk about it.
Arnaud Marthouret / Single Serves:
Well, thank you very much for this very interesting conversation and thank you for your time.
Andrew Lane:
Thanks for all your questions, you guys.
Peter Sobchack / Bevel:
It's been great chatting with you. Thanks for coming on.
