Arquitectura e Virtualidade. O desenho do imaterial

Abstract

We've witnessed over the last decades a digitalization that has affected many aspects of life, including the field of Architecture. The development of tools of extended reality in particular - this includes virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality - has been very fast, the accessibility to them fast-growing, and their advantages ever more pertinent to architects. If digitalization was already a rapid process, it was even more accelerated by the needs brought up by a pandemic crisis that forced us to come up with alternatives to physical spaces for most aspects of our daily lives. New technologies bring forth new behaviors and values, and the possible predominance of the virtual jeopardizes our traditional definitions of Architecture by introducing the idea of Virtual Architecture. This dissertation proposes an exploration of the relationship between extended realities and Architecture, raising a discussion about how Architecture will adapt to these technologies e what practical and theoretical consequences may come from this evolution towards the immaterial.