Whoever you want to be and whatever you wish to be a part of, you can do it or find it on the Internet. It gives context to the desires, opinions and beliefs that cannot find a place in the physical world and provides access to ideas held back by social norms. As the Internet moves the world, we move into the Internet, immersing ourselves in its possibilities to transform life. As we slip through the screen, enabled by recent developments in AR/VR technology, we emerge on the other side at the Immersive Internet.

The Immersive Internet is not a novel initiative. It is the inevitable metamorphosis of the WWW as it gains a new dimension. Once we have brought our bodies and senses into a partially or fully simulated reality, we are having an architectural experience. Who is designing these buildings? What are their functions and their natures? And, most importantly, why go to the trouble of constructing architectural enclosures when there is nothing to be physically sheltered from? The fact that early citizens of the Immersive Internet are creating such spaces tells us that architecture is the answer; we just have to figure out the question.

Architecture currently serves as a reference for structuring behaviour and social relations in the virtual. Lectures take place in rooms with typical theatre layouts and raves happen in nightclubs. This seems like a lost opportunity to explore what could be possible in this new environment. However, it points to a very interesting future in which architecture is a shelter for the mind. But in a place where one can walk through walls, turn people to mute or switch entire spaces off at any given time, what kind of social behaviour is to be expected?

Civic space fulfils the shifting and ambiguous role of structuring collective life. Without civic space, there can be no democratic society and without a civic Internet, there can be no Immersive Internet, as the right to associate, assemble and freely express views are the fundamental principles upon which it is founded. With mounting fear that we might have built the largest privatised surveillance machine ever imagined, the need for a regulated, secure and fair simulated reality is increasingly in mainstream agreement.

We therefore seek to create visions for civic spaces in the Immersive Internet. Learning from the rich history of civic architecture and embracing the idea of a future of overlapping realities, we will shape mixed physical and virtual spaces that acknowledge and respond to the awesomeness and awfulness of our inevitably technological lives.