It began as a “purely academic exercise” with no timeline or business goal. The team at NOOR Architects Consultants in India had been following all the buzz about the metaverse and wanted to experiment—so it built an extension of its Chandigarh studio in the space. “We don’t always aim for tangible outcomes,” says company founder Noor Dasmesh Singh. “It is the quest in the unknown that drives us.” But the deeper Singh and the team delved, the more they saw an opportunity to explore radically new ways of working. The learning curve was fast—and transcendent. The end product is a subterranean structure nestled against sand dunes, with a stairway that appears to be carved from rock. Inside, there are various nods to design, including a model of the Open Hand monument, while raked-sand floors are meant to underscore the beauty of empty spaces. The metaverse studio isn’t just a stunning piece of design work, though: Singh is also collaborating with clients to bridge the digital and ph...