Conference Agenda

Environmental sustainability continues to be a focus of research, exploring how various industries can be supported to ensure that environmental sustainability is being implemented within industry practices. Research has shifted to investigate how recent technological developments, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), can support the progression towards more sustainable futures. This study explores the design industry, and whether AI can be implemented during the design process as a tool to aid designers in the implementation of key aspects of environmental sustainability or Eco-Design. Conducting a literature review into the key themes of the study, as well as experimenting with AI models, a workflow has been developed which encompasses key research insights surrounding environmental sustainability. The workflow centres around the design process, and has been generated utilising AI, with collaboration and task designation in mind. Future research objectives have also been outlined.

The dynamic landscape of commercial metaverse platforms has given rise to a transformative information system architecture, enabling Human-to-Human and Human-to-Autonomous Agent interactions, redefining digital urban environments. This intricate architecture has incited two pivotal shifts in human behaviour within virtual worlds. Firstly, it would catalyse the proliferation of metaverse and social channels, broadening touchpoints to encompass diverse target populations. Secondly, this diversification necessitates the creation of specialised, autonomous scenarios tailored to individual metaverse ecosystems and participant groups. In this highly diffusing realm of opportunities, the requirements for metaverse experience architectures should be addressed to design the future digital urban environment. The metaverse experience architecture basically should guarantee consistent virtual identities and platform-specific autonomous workflows that bridge the gap between "Place" and "Non-place" and facilitate access for culturally and socially diverse communities.

“Place” and “Non-place” configuration is a useful spatial design concept in urban planning. The idea of “Non-place” explains postmodernist environments that lack the personal memories and engagement, and initiate anthropological spaces of transience where they produce anonymity of individuals (Augé, 1992). The “Non-place” characteristics of metaverse poses the openness as well as anonymous interaction that have driven the community dynamics defining the emotional and social interaction in metaverse worlds. The space of transience has morphed into a space of memories while it accumulates the interactions, and experiences in the space. The evolution process and the patterns of human behaviours in the digital space is the key notion of the Utopian Metaverse research.

The research delves into these emerging experience architectures within metaverse environments, framing them within the context of "Place" and "Non-place" comparisons. The mixture of “Place” and “Non-place” attributes consists of the hybrid space of experiences that merges factual and virtual worlds. The transient autonomous interaction in the hybrid space opens the new possibility of human communication that overcomes the space, time, and other gaps of epistemological conciliation. Especially the technological enhancement of spatial computing enacts the necessities of investigating the hybrid space architecture that significantly enhances sensorial, and cognitive aspects of human computer interaction. The immersive, informative, and immediate information exchanges in the hybrid space would surface the latent needs and human desires. They would be represented, recognised, and resonated among the participants in a collective manner. From the auto-participatory nature, we explore the utopian potential of metaverse development, envisioning virtual spaces that inspire cooperation, creativity, and a sense of belonging. By investigating the interplay between "Place" and "Non-place" dynamics, we shed light on their impact on community formation and cohesion, fostering a vision of a utopian metaverse that transcends physical and digital boundaries. Our comparative contextual inquiries in three unique 3D virtual worlds—Roblox, Sansar, and Second Life— would reveal how platform-specific subject matters, storytelling styles, technical preferences, and age groups significantly influence communication frequency, perceived efficiency, group contingency, and ease of platform usage. Ultimately the research would discover the metaverse's potential for creating utopian communities.

How can a manufacturing SME start research projects in the field of advanced customization services for its furniture products and establish new dynamics of interaction with its distribution network? The integration between Design Management processes and the possibilities offered by advanced visualization and customization information technologies have made possible the introduction of agile and high-performance product configurators, capable of enhancing and strengthening model composition, photorealistic rendering, interaction and budgeting in the upholstered furniture sector.