Lendlease launches its own metaverse in Milan

Lendlease has created its own metaverse, with a virtual replica of the Milano Innovation District (MIND) in Milan, Italy.

MIND is a 100 hectare redevelopment on the Expo 2015 site, set to become the research and innovation hub for the city.

Digital Nation Australia spoke to Ciaran Hennessey, chief software architect at Lendlease Digital about how Lendlease’s virtual reality, sustainability focussed games allow users to experience MIND before the project is complete.

“We've been building out our metaverse answer to try and replicate and then add to that experience that people would have in the real world, because most people can understand that visual sort of 3D world much better than a two dimensional,” said Hennessey.

“If we start to demonstrate that in a meaningful way and say, ‘Well, imagine if you did have a biotech experimentation place in MIND’ and in the metaverse you could show people the current thinking around what type of genome processing you're doing, or what type of experiments you have been working on have people be able to interact with those in a meaningful way without actually having to be at that district as well.”

Hennessey said that Lendlease’s metaverse is based on real designs and concepts.

“It's actually very spatially accurate, very design correct of what that village and what that environment will look like when we actually complete it. So it gives us an ability to show people our thinking around how a district might work and to really demonstrate that industry leading thinking that we have around placemaking around, sustainable design.”

According to Hennessey, Lendlease’s two virtual reality games are designed to educate users on the complexities of the property and construction industry and complement the work that goes into the construction of these districts.

“It adds to some of the things that we're doing in Lendlease and some of the experiments we've done in places like Barangaroo around recycling and understanding how buildings can be more efficient, can be more energy neutral, because these type of innovations and these changes we can test and we can look at the impact and we can also understand where the people find them meaningful before we build them into the physical fabric.”