Space Popular sets out its vision for digital portals made of virtual textiles

Day six of the Dezeen 15 virtual festival saw architects Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg of Space Popular explain their idea for “a civic infrastructure for virtual teleportation” in a live video interview.

“Rather than swap pages when we switch tabs or click a link, we replace the entire environment around us,” they wrote in their manifesto.

“In the coming 15 years, we must create a civic infrastructure for virtual teleportation that breaks with the discriminatory and opaque nature of locked doors, hidden vigilance, privacy breaches and concealed discrimination.

Instead, they propose “a threaded network of virtual textiles that our virtual selves pull aside to move between virtual environments.”

“Such textiles only become apparent once we aim to touch them, pulling apart in mid-air the environment we are in and allowing us to access another.”

Alongside their manifesto, the studio also showcased 10 projects that make use of textiles as well as a teaser of their upcoming exhibition at Sir John Soane’s Museum.

Space Popular is a multidisciplinary design and research studio founded by architects Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg. The duo has pioneered the development of virtual architecture, designing the world’s first virtual-reality architecture conference.

The Dezeen 15 festival features 15 manifestos presenting ideas that could change the world over the next 15 years. Each contributor will also take part in a live video interview.

See the line-up of contributors here.

The portrait of Space Popular is by Anna Huix.

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