Manifesting Creativity in Virtual World Building: A Case Study in Gather

Abstract

The environmental design field has established methodologies for designing indoor and outdoor environments and developed best practices for designing spaces to support human creativity. Thoring et al. have systematized current knowledge around the design of spaces in the physical world to facilitate creative processes into a series of ten propositions [47]. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in the use of online spatial platforms to support virtual co-working. How to design virtual workplaces to support various creative processes is an emergent and open question. Thus, we present an initial exploration of the opportunities and constraints we confronted while attempting to manifest Thoring et al.'s ten propositions for creative facilitation in Gather [9], a 2D virtual world platform.