🌎 Bio-mimicry in the metaverse: a nature inspired digital world

Open field, Skeuomorphic design, Collaborating Ecosystem

This is article 3 of 7 for The Tech Progressive writers community, where we will post 1 article a day for 7 days.

I recently visited the exhibition of Antoni Gaudi, the famous architect from Barcelona, the mastermind behind the cathedral of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona which attracts more than 4 million people every year.

Though I don't know much about art, I learned something important that day.

Gaudi is inspired by nature. He is fascinated by how animals look, how plants grow, and how nature built itself as we have seen today. This is also known as biomimicry, learning and copying from nature.

Nature is much older than humans, it has evolved and developed for millions of years, therefore it is Lindy. As we are now building the future of our world in the metaverse, we should also find inspiration from nature.

“Nothing is invented, for it's written in nature first”

Antonio Gaudi

🌿 An open field

Just like the open grass field, the metaverse should also be open to anyone that would like to play, socialize, and earn a living. Not owned or controlled by a central entity, but rather taken care of and managed by the community. Just like the relationship between the indigenous community and the forest.

Examples of a decentralized metaverse are decentraland, sandbox, and star atlas, just to name a few. The builders behind these projects have something in common, creating an open field in the digital world.

👁️ Skeuomorphic design

Our brain and vision are designed to understand what we are used to seeing, and need more effort to adapt to experience something new. This is why most successful video games look like our environment in real life such as the sims or grand theft auto. This is called a skeuomorphic design.

Source: Justin Baker

This concept is already widely used in web2. Take a look at the app of your Iphone (e.g calculator, notes), it's designed to mimic the original physical version.

It is fun to imagine that we will see a lot of metaverses that look like science fiction. But in reality, we might actually see a skeuomorphic virtual reality that is familiar for most people and comfortable to spend time in, as you might have seen in Mark Zuckerberg’s video.

🤝 Collaborating ecosystem

In a thriving ecosystem, there is a balancing act in play between different plants and animals to support each other. Remember the pond example from 6th grade biology class? We learned that frogs, water plants, worms, and other species are mutually benefiting each other in the ecosystem.

Bring this to the metaverse, engineers, designers, content creators, city planners and others diverse talent could collaborate in harmony and create abundance. To make this happen, we need marketplaces such as the newly launched Metalents, which aims to connect metaverse/ Web3 projects with promising contributors.

Conclusion

We have messed up a lot of things in the physical world because we have abandoned the roots of nature. 

The metaverse is the new frontier. It's a clean page for humanity. Now let's not repeat the same mistake in the digital world, and get inspired by nature!

Thanks for reading this article and enjoy the weather ☀️.