Remote work skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic as most people were forced to work from home, but the trend is nothing new. Over the past decade, there’s been a significant increase in companies offering remote work options to their employees, and teleconferencing is as popular as ever as a means for workers to communicate, collaborate, and develop new ideas and projects.

Additionally, with the rise of the “virtual” workspace, NFTs, and other means of expanding the digital world in business, it comes as no surprise that the first office in the metaverse would be the wave of the future. And the future is now.

A first in the architectural sphere, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has taken the leap into virtual stardom with their completion of the first office in the metaverse. Dubbed “Viceverse,” the office will serve as the new, entirely virtual HQ for Vice Media Group (VMG). Located in Decentraland’s vast, open world digital platform, VMG’s new space is the first of its kind, and an apropos addition to other virtual initiatives led by VMG’s innovation division Virtue Futures, itself an important part of the agency’s creative arm, Virtue Worldwide (known for their launch of Coca-Cola’s first NFT last year).

With so many heavy hitters involved in the project, it’s no surprise that this group of creators used their forward-thinking initiatives to imagine a workplace entirely in the metaverse – an “innovation lab” where teams can collaborate, experiment, and develop projects like new NFTs, DAOs, and the “future of the Internet.”

Recognizing that “the creative opportunities within the metaverse are hugely exciting,” Virtue Futures’ Global Executive Creative Director Morten Grubek recently expressed the agency’s desire to add their own company to the list of others they have helped navigate the metaverse, a vision “that has taken on a new reality” with the addition of BIG spearheading the architectural side of the project.

As you’d expect from the daring Danish designers, Viceverse is just as stylish as the architect’s brick and mortar buildings – a sleek and swirly composition that fits in beautifully with its pixellated surroundings. And much like an office here in the non-virtual world, Viceverse will offer employees the chance to collaborate with each other and with clients, developing new projects, experimenting with upcoming technologies, and presenting ideas through in-world communications and presentations.

As Nancy Duboc, CEO of Vice Media Group, recently stated, “Vice has always been about being inside culture…This is a new frontier filled with potential and once again, we’re proud to be pushing the boundaries.”