15 Mariana Cabugueira: Optimistic embrace of physical and digital architecture

In this episode, we talk with our guest Mariana about digital architecture for the metaverse and web3, how design compares between the digitial and the physical, optimisim or lackthereof within the architectural profession, generational shifts, and how to maintain wellbeing.

Mariana Cabugueira is an architect and the founder of Mariana Cabugueria Studio. She has previously worked at Zaha Hadid Architects in London and at the web3 metaverse blockchain platform Wilder World. She speaks at numerous events worldwide on the intersection of physical and digital architecture. She teaches the highly successful Metaverse Architecture studio with Maya and Unreal Engine.

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Podcast transcript

Dimitar: Welcome to the UH Studio Architecture Podcast. We're joined by Mariana Capuboeira, who is the founder of her hybrid, mixed, physical and digital architectural design company called Mariana Capuboeira Studios. She's a former architect and designer at Zaha Hadid Architects, and she's also the first fellow DRL grad that I've had on the podcast.

Mariana: Wilder Worlds for Metaverse Architecture. Well, currently I'm actually the founder of my own studio. So that was the last detail that was skipped.

Dimitar: Yes, because it's brand new, right? Brand new.

Mariana: Congratulations. I mean, now it's not so brand new. It's been a month already and it started like I never thought it would start like that. So it started like really strong, which is a good sign. And now let's see how it's evolved.

Dimitar: Great. Cool. So your own company, is it Metaverse Architecture? Is it Physical Architecture? A little bit of both?

Mariana: Yeah, that's the objective. The whole time was to learn from a good office, in this case Zaha, for architecture and physical environments. And then to learn from Wilder Worlds for architecture and digital environments. And then when both were enough, I had enough knowledge on both to start my own. I'll be able to do hybrids and hybridization between the physical environment and the digital environment. So that's exactly the point, I got the digital one, stopped and started my own studio to do exactly that. To hybridize the practice of architecture to digital environments and physical environments, absolutely powered by AI.

Dimitar: So Omniverse, is that the Omniverse?

Mariana: Exactly.

Dimitar: Bingo, how do you know?

Mariana: It's very rare to see someone who knows.

Dimitar: I pay attention with what's going on with technology, but I haven't even installed. I don't know how to run it all. To my knowledge, it's a little bit like Unreal, but more for professionals. But I'm not sure if that's really the case.

Mariana: Exactly. That's exactly how I see it as well. It's still in the beginning as well, but it's just a matter of seeing how it develops. But the reality is what they are doing with this big trend on NPCs, they are actually something that will help a lot on what we call the Metaverse, or what we call the Web Stream immersive environments, because they will populate it. And they will make organic behaviors that do not rely on having a human behind them to make an organic living on an immersive digital environment. And that's exactly what we are hoping for and waiting for, to be honest.

Dimitar: Is that like having a video game character, right? In a traditional video game, you kind of allow them and you say, you know, that person is going to turn left or that person is going to turn right. And you kind of program that behavior. Are you saying that you don't need to program that kind of behavior?

Mariana: It's not really yours, it's the people around you. You see how usually the success of the space translates on how many users or how many people are inside using the space, right? And this is a very hard topic on the current Web 3D environments, because you do have like 10 active players and you do see a big space with 10 active players and you feel like, well, what is this? It's kind of hostile and you leave.

Dimitar: But from the moment that you can integrate the NPC, so the non-player, the one that is being generated by the AI, it does not have a user behind. And nowadays you can tell what an NPC is because it does have an odd behavior, it's not organic. But from the moment that you can actually integrate an organic behavior into an NPC, you can fill a concert hall with a thousand people acting organically and normally. And you would go to that concert and you probably think, I am surrounded with a thousand people. And they're actually NPCs, they are AI-generated. And this sounds like not so important, but it's actually what will dictate the success of a company that does Metaverse or that does Web 3D violence.

Mariana: That's very interesting because I imagine that kind of technology would have a very strong crossover into animations as well, more traditional media.

Dimitar: Imagine that.

Mariana: Or in movies.

Dimitar: Yes, definitely. Yeah.

Mariana: Cool. So I guess that topic brings us to like one of the first questions that I wanted to ask you is you've talked before, you mentioned briefly, not talked a lot, about the similarities between physical architecture and Metaverse architecture, or shall we call it Web 3D architecture for better clarity? So you mentioned-

Dimitar: Let's start by saying, yeah.

Mariana: Sorry.

Dimitar: We can make that, let's make that disclosure in the end. We know Metaverse will be an absolute name in 10 years, probably be a reason to be mocked at. So I believe it will vanish and they will look at us as dinosaurs whenever we say the word Metaverse. So let's all say that Metaverse will help us to say the word Metaverse more than saying Web 3 immersive environments. So for all the listeners here in 100 years, if you're listening to us, when we say Metaverse, we know we are being dinosaurs.

Mariana: Web 3 immersive environments. This is what we mean.

Dimitar: Imagine that somebody listening to this in 100 years time, I don't even know what kind of media people would consume then.

Mariana: I know me too.

Dimitar: Yeah. Or what kind of architecture they'll be living in? Would it be more digital or physical or like somewhere in between?

Mariana: I believe, I mean, if I would not believe strongly in between, I wouldn't be doing this studio the way that I am. So I do believe that it will be somewhere in between.

Dimitar: And what do you mean? So how do you describe that in between? Is it like, at some point, I think it died out, but maybe two years ago, there was a trend that you could sell something that's important and unique, and then it would have an NFT attached to it, but you still got a physical thing. But along with the physical thing, you got something digital that was also unique. I don't know what your thoughts are about that, and is what you're thinking something along those lines or something a little bit different?

Mariana: Well, I mean, it's very hard to predict how it will evolve, right? We are kind of in the blind, touching the surfaces that we understand, and especially the practices that we understand. And how would these practices translate in digital environments? The reality is our practices, our current practices from our generation, mine and yours, and so not the Alphas and not some of the Gen Zs, they are very different from the practices that actually take place on immersive environments because we rarely do immersive digital environments. Our digital environments, our generations as boomers and the millennials, is very 2D with a screen that separates us both. We do have our digital life, and we have a lot of digital life, especially our social life. But it is still through a very archaic medium that is a 2D screen.

Dimitar: Young kids, they are not doing that anymore, right? They are kind of getting closer to this limbo from Roblox.

Mariana: I don't know if you have seen kids using Roblox, it's fascinating.

Dimitar: My kids are a bit young, so they're not there yet. We're trying to keep them as much away from the screens as possible.

Mariana: But they will get there. If this is what the social arena is, what can you do? But as they get closer to this limbo, it makes us kind of misfits to understand that limbo. We just need to predict. Probably you will know better than most of us when your kids grow up. How is this limbo and how does it look like? How does having a social life in this environment look like? What I think is we have this responsibility as the older generation to regulate it, like you are doing with your kids. And to say what are the rules for this? We know that this is happening. We know that this will happen. We will have a strongly digital social environment. How do we regulate that? Because we are the older ones. We know what are the mistakes that have been done before. So that's our responsibility. And far enough is to kind of dwell in this limbo.

Dimitar: The goal and the responsibility is to understand how do we regulate something that will inevitably happen. I think that's very important. Because algorithms have more and more of an impact on our lives. And it's from anything. From the news that we read, from the friends that we keep in touch with, to the TV that we watch on Netflix. And I see it with my children. They watch Netflix. But they don't have a choice. They think they have a choice. But the system recommends to them number one or number two or three or four choices. And they're like, okay, I'll click one of those two.

Mariana: Exactly. And I dare to say that I get personally very angry when my online medium does not understand my algorithm. I get angry. I don't understand, for example, why open Google Translate, and they still don't understand after 10 years that I will most likely try to translate Portuguese to English or English to Portuguese. It's been 10 years and the algorithm does not get it. And I'm like, why? Keep up. You know, these small things are when Spotify gets my music taste algorithm completely wrong. I get so angry. How can you not get it? It's been years and years. So it's kind of both, right? We get angry that we have so much algorithm happening around us, and we also get angry when the algorithm is not accurate.

Dimitar: Yeah, I totally get you. And that probably has a big impact if more architecture experiences, in whatever form they might be, happen digitally in the metaverse. Because then how do we guarantee that people are getting, you know, the right experience in a similar way?

Mariana: Yeah, I agree with you.

Dimitar: So, is your process the same between designing digitally and physically, or not digitally and physically, because we're all designing digitally these days, but designing for the metaverse? Is it the same as designing a project that you expect might be built at some point?

Mariana: Is my process designed for the metaverse similar to the process of designing physical environments? Yes, it is similar. Is this correct? No, it's absolutely wrong. And the people who are doing it are wrong as well. We as architects know as our base foundation of knowledge that form follows function. And if you do have a different practice in a space, your space has the responsibility to change in form and use.

Dimitar: So if we are doing our social life differently in an environment, this environment needs to reflect that. And if it's not reflecting it, it's dumb. It's a dumb space. It's stupid.

Mariana: Exactly. So we've been seeing a lot of dumb spaces on these metaverse or Web3 environments, where basically it's not designed by architects, but it's designed by people who imitate and copy what architects do in real life without thinking why it was done.

Dimitar: I'm a very big fan of history. I know what changed in architecture because of what. And it's usually because of use, because of society, because of practices. So if we copy what we have in real life in a digital environment, and we behave very differently in these digital environments, we are just being blind. So that's why one of the reasons why I hope that architects get involved more is to question the typology of space, which again, it's something that we learned. Game designers did not learn what the typology of space is. Graphic designers do not have any idea that there are typologies of spaces, of architecture, archetypes. And archetypes come from use, come from practice, come from society, come from culture.

Mariana: So if all of these changes, they will have to change and they will have to be questioned. Unfortunately, the type I've been doing lately, because I was asked to, was the typical architecture translated to a digital environment, probably more fluid because that's my style. So I was asked to do my style, but I was not questioning the archetype because they were not questioning the archetype. But you should. A tower is not a tower anymore. What do I do there? You should reflect that.

Dimitar: And that's another thing that from all the conclusions, I was all this time doing my own conclusions of what should I change when I do my office and I do my studio. And this was number one from day one when I understood we are translating our cities to digital environments like dumb people.

Mariana: And we are doing a copy of it.

Dimitar: I totally get you and feel you because I think either you or somebody else from Wilder World published an image of Wiami. And I remember seeing that image, which was some great architecture. But then it had like a 10-lane highway that was empty. And I was thinking, why do we need to have an empty 10-lane highway in a digital city?

Mariana: Nobody's driving there, right? You can teleport yourself. You don't need that kind of infrastructure in there. And it just made me question exactly what you were saying. We could be using this platform not to simply replicate our world, but even to think about how we can improve it in some ways.

Dimitar: Exactly. And to be smarter than that. Why do we copy something that ends? Speaking of highways, highways for me as an urban planner and architect, they are the cancer of my city. Literally, the number one cancer of my city. The noise, visual noise, field noise, discomfort around roads, and especially asphalt. And everything that all the problems I brought to our world because of asphalt. Who likes asphalt? Who likes it? You like to drive your car on top of it, but who likes like a highway of nine lanes?

Mariana: And it's that kind of thing that, I mean, of course you give your opinion, but you don't drive other people's vision, of course. But it's these kinds of conclusions that you take and you actually think, okay, this has to change. Unless we are not building the metaverse and we are doing like a game or something. But if you are doing a Web3 immersive environment, why are you copying the mistakes of architects of urban humans?

Dimitar: And that probably goes along with the point you were mentioning, right? First is what's the reason for making it, right? Is it to be a game or is it using it as a research platform? And secondly, who is doing the design? Is it mostly designers? Is it game developers? As you said, some other graphic artists?

Mariana: Exactly. I believe that there will be space for all of them to be creating their own environment and their own immersive environment.

Dimitar: But I could also be very straightforward and say that if you are confused between building a game or a metaverse, then you don't know what you're building.

Mariana: We understand our identity when we are adolescents. That's when we develop our identity. That's when you understand what I am and what I am not. If you're building something and you don't know what it is or what it is not, then it has no identity. And you have to decide if you're doing a game or if you're doing a Web3 environment. If until then you are just discovering, it's normal. It's part of your journey to discover what it is. But who you have working for this will also dictate what it is.

Dimitar: So what is a Web3 environment that is not a game? Was Wilder World, like Wiami, is that a game?

Mariana: I believe, I'm not the Wyoming builder, so I'm not sure. But I believe that we haven't seen yet the actual Web3 immersive environment that happens seamlessly without having a reward system or a city that is copied by another city. I think that what's happening with the younger generations, so the Alphas and what's happening on Roblox, and it does not mean the reward system of Roblox or the quests or the Easter eggs, but it's the way they socialize. They open their cameras, they have video calls befor...

Dimitar: I haven't seen that. Do all the kids get on video calls?

Mariana: Yes, and they say this video call looks like Skype. And they chat and they are just having fun. Then they say, "OK, let's get in." And they get in a little city that is a very cartoonish city. Then they start discovering spaces while they talk, like "Hey, guys, I just saw something here, you guys want to check it out? I'm in the bedroom," and people and all of your friends go there and check. Then there's a question, there are cool things or fun things, and then hours go by.

Dimitar: And basically, this is in this limbo between is it a game or is it your social arena? And it's kind of very much in the middle. But there are other industries that do not relate with the gaming industry. And they are probably the ones that will thrive the most, from fitness to cosmetics to concerts, music, art. They will translate to digital environments. They are not based on reward systems.

Mariana: And we are not there yet to see how that happens. Who is the audience, and who designs it? We are, like I said, just touching, going around, and saying, what is it? And for whom is it? And if you are a millennial, if you are a boomer, I dare to say you're clueless about what the metaverse is, because it does not come naturally to you. And it's normal. It does not come naturally to us.

Dimitar: But if you're doing a game, if you're doing a race car, you're not building the metaverse. You have to understand it belongs to that generation. You have to understand the social aspect of it, and you have to understand the scalability of it. And the scalability means who does it, what genders, what races, what ages.

Mariana: And that makes you obliged to understand the variety and the inclusion of what the metaverse will have to be or what the Web3 environment has to be. So I think the answer is, as boomers and millennials, we need to understand what these kids are doing. They will become adults one day. And how do we regulate that? And how do we not just regulate—that's not the fun part—but how do we make other companies stronger by using it and by being part of it, or make our experiences stronger by being part o...

Dimitar: It's Monday morning. I'm not going.

Mariana: Yeah. And I mean, you're a parent. How do you educate your children? It's a reward system.

Dimitar: Exactly. Well, it's a reward system. That's how we're trained.

Mariana: But it's exactly what I was saying. Our actual life in physical environments is based on reward systems. We work for a reward system. For a reward, we do efforts for rewards, and we expect those rewards in everything we do.

Dimitar: We've been trained well as children, I think. Yes, exactly. And as children, that's how you keep them going, with the "well done, you did well, amazing."

Dimitar: As a parent, I click like on a couple of posts for psychology for children, and then you get a flood. The algorithm starts to understand that I'm into that. So I get more and more of them.

Mariana: I can't imagine.

Mariana: Yes, and there was one exactly on this. It says, instead of saying "well done," just giving them praise all the time, you say, "Oh, that's great. Let's do it again next time." A slight switch.

Mariana: Actually, that's the way I was raised at school. You have the first exams batch, and then you have the second one. If you fail, you can go to the second batch, like the cycles of exams. You do the finals, and then you have a second call. So my parents, even if I have a very good mark on the first one, they would say, "Well done. And now you have the second one to improve that." I would always go to the second one to improve.

Dimitar: So it's kind of like that.

Mariana: Thinking about the education system, it's also in a way architecture, right? When you're at a crit as a student, your teachers, your professors, the invited jury, they never say you did an excellent job. They say, "Oh, that works really well, but how about we do this here? And how about we change that here a little bit as well?"

Dimitar: It's a big topic actually. And if you go past education and then you go to offices and the real world at offices, that's a big topic - verbal reward. I'm not even talking about financial reward, but verbal rewards.

Mariana: Well, that's the unwritten agreement in a way in offices, isn't it? You do not get verbal praise. Your praise is your check.

Dimitar: And you know, in London, your check is very meager. So your praise is not a lot.

Mariana: Exactly. Exactly.

Dimitar: You summed it up perfectly. You would solve at least like 60% of the problems with verbal rewards. That's what I believe.

Mariana: Well done, good job.

Dimitar: This is my wife. She's into personal development and was organizing seminars for a while. So I did all of them, and I understood the importance of communicating more sincerely, more honestly. And that's something that's not only missing in architecture but in many professional fields. Some industries are a little bit more ahead than others. But from my experience, architecture is one of the more conservative industries. We're back there with the banks.

Mariana: And you can see it, like standing desks are still something that offices don't have in architecture because it's a new thing, you know. So it might take a while for it to land in our industry.

Dimitar: Yeah, I think so too. It's a matter of progress.

Mariana: Well, that was a great little chat. I can talk so much about the other side of things, the psychology side of things, but maybe we'll keep that for later because I have quite a few more metaverse questions that I want to ask you. So at some point, in one of the podcasts that I listened to with you, you mentioned something that I found super fascinating and something I've thought a lot about. It's about how 90% of the work that architects do does not get built, right? Maybe some smaller architects in smaller countries do have more of a relationship with builders and so on and do residential additions, but design architects in places like London, New York, Tokyo—there are so many competitions, so many feasibility studies, that 90% of the work doesn't get built. That's my humble assumption; it might even be more, right? And a lot of those projects are fantastic projects. They're great projects, but the world doesn't find out about them. Some of them are guided by NDAs, but some are not. You mentioned that the metaverse could be an interesting place for those buildings, those projects to live. Can you speak a little more about that?

Mariana: Sure. So I realized that there is this very big depository of projects that will never see the light of day when I joined Zaha Hadid Architects. And one of the first things that I realized was that the best projects and the best architecture I'd ever seen were actually on the unbuilt list. I was shocked and kind of heartbroken. And I wasn't even—I just got to the office. I imagine what the owner of the office, Zaha, would have felt knowing that her best projects were the unbuilt ones. They were absolutely breathtaking, but no one will ever see them. And when I started doing my own cemetery of projects, projects that were just going to social media and then die, I was kind of sad to depart from those projects, knowing they would never have a purpose—until the NFT talks and the metaverse talks started. That's the first time I saw the light for my own cemetery of projects. I thought, "Wait, they can be experienced. They aren't going to be experienced as physical environments, but you can still walk around inside them." It's a future for them. That's when I realized that if the metaverse or the Web3 environment were as mainstream as we imagine, Zaha could have their own world of unbuilt projects. And I can tell you as an outsider, they would be amazing.

Dimitar: That's so interesting. So did you see that as a driving force for what you are doing now? Is it a way to let these projects come to life in a different way?

Mariana: Exactly. That was when I realized that the metaverse is actually where unbuilt architecture should go. It should be a place for these incredible projects that, for whatever reason, didn’t get realized in the physical world. Now they have a place where people can experience them, see them, walk through them in digital form. And that’s what I want to do with my studio—give those projects a second life, a second chance.

Dimitar: That’s a beautiful mission. It’s like an archive of visionary architecture, not lost to time, but reborn in a new format.

Mariana: Yes, exactly! It’s exciting to think about the possibilities. It doesn’t have to be limited to what we couldn’t build—there are so many new forms and ideas that we can now create in these digital environments, things that would be impossible in the real world.

Dimitar: That’s such a powerful way to look at it. It gives so much more value to digital architecture. It’s not just about creating something cool for a game or a virtual world. It’s about preserving creativity and ideas.

Mariana: Absolutely. And that’s why I’m so passionate about it. We’re just at the beginning of what’s possible in these spaces, and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

Dimitar: I’m excited too. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and insights with us, Mariana. It’s been an amazing conversation. I’m sure our listeners are as inspired as I am.

Mariana: Thank you so much, Dimitar. It’s been a pleasure, and I look forward to seeing what’s next for your podcast and your work as well!

Dimitar: Thanks! We’ll definitely keep the conversation going.