An Architect Reviews the Apartments of Night City [Cyberpunk 2077]

[Music] if you've been away from night City for a while or maybe you're just starting your first playthrough with cyberpunk now you might not know that V has some new digs to choose from other than the standard mega block you start out with each one of them tell a story about night City and about the V that you want to be in this universe maybe you're an edge Runner wanting to live literally out on the edge and out of sight or maybe you feel like you want to be more connected with culture and want to be in the middle of things or perhaps you're a corpora who wants to feel connected with their former life or maybe you just want to feel like you've made it and live large on the top whichever you choose though I'm going to help you decide in this episode of An Architect reviews or I will as always employ my professional experience to examine something in the digital realm this time it's the sweet new crash pads you can choose after tough gigs and cyberpunk's night City one thing you might 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if none of this really works for you you can always get your money back with their 30 day money back guarantee foreign so one of the things I did in preparation for this video was to do some research into how cdpr prepared for Designing such an immense project an entire city is a lot to take on and to make it feel real and lived in takes a lot of skill and experience what I discovered in my research was that they employed something that they called a design Bible which contains a library of each style you'll see in cyberpunk each of which is tied to the world of cyberpunk having a backstory for its origin and an underlying meaning the four major design archetypes they developed were Kitsch described as style over substance it's plastic cheap flamboyant has bright Neons and the style is something that you might see Edge runners or gang members wear in night city entropism which is necessity over style this is cheap uniform utilitarian design rugged employing dull Earth Tone colors in and it's something that you'd usually find on the outer edges of night City where people have less money and they just need something to live then you have neo-militarism which is substance over style this is the style of the corporate world it's expensive rigid oppressive organized and usually employs strong blacks with red accents then you have Neo Kitsch which is style is substance this is the style of the most elite of night City the high-end interpretation of the lower classes Kitsch it's kind of a parody If you will because the people who wear it aren't actually Edge Runners they're just trying to look like they are it's very flamboyant with bright colors and usually has lots of gold and expensive exotic materials and so throughout this video I'll be referring to these design styles to help inform what each space is trying to say the underlying meaning as it were of these spaces as these Styles tie to the world of cyber social structure so now let's actually begin to explore the apartments of night City beginning at the lowest end and ending at the top which means we'll start at North Side Watson at the motel turned apartment complex which can be yours for just 5 000 Eddies from the outside it appears to be a bit of a downgrade from where you began at the mega blot however as you'll find appearances can be deceiving the north side Watson Motel is just down the street and an eye shot of the ritzy kampeki Plaza a place that you'll find in the campaign featured prominently near the beginning of the story it contrasts with Watson's downtrodden entropism design style this is after all one of the poorest districts in night City past a few Chrome junkies and up a flight of stairs brings you to a netrunner's hideout complete with high-tech equipment to give the user an edge over corpo overlords being a former Motel the floor plan is typical of what you might find in an American Motel save for the addition made by the former occupant or the wall adjacent to the unit's bathroom has been knocked out and repurposed as a Gun Room the space is small but cozy big enough to serve its purpose with a place to sleep net run store iron and of course use the bathroom now the bathroom isn't really much to look at but it is what it is and you get what you pay for the room's design is a very aged Kitsch style hailing from a more optimistic time long past evident from the curved and smooth lines of the kitchenette and storage area one interesting note though is that the back wall is actually a large vending machine this space then more than any that we'll see on our tour demonstrates an intrusion of hyper capitalism into personal space where even your Cabinetry is pay-per-use think of microtransactions but for everything in your house while the design is just a repurposed motel room it's utilitarian nature and retrofit Edge Runner gear tell a compelling story about the inhabitants it has character it feels like a place to hide out in from corpos who just want to rob you of your freedom and for that despite its lack of high-end design I love this space because it's clear that the designers spent some time trying to make it feel like it belongs in this world and for that reason big thumbs up the next apartment on our list is located in Japan Town Westbrook and it can be purchased for 15 000 Eddies in game and as the name of the district would suggest this district is heavily influenced by Japanese culture and so you'll find a good deal of very overt references to Japanese architecture scattered throughout the district and if this District looks familiar to you and you've not played the game it might be because it was also featured prominently in the recently released critically acclaimed Edge Runners anime on Netflix in fact approaching from the river going towards the apartment that we're about to check out you'll find that it's right next to Lucy's apartment in the old turbo hangout from the anime the Japantown apartment building like most in this district is heavily influenced by places like Hong Kong or even some of taiwan's older districts many of them seem to employ a modern design which is modern with an e at the end this is a far less ornate offshoot of the more popular known Art Deco style which happened in the 1920s to 30s this suggests that the building is quite a bit older which is also supported by the secondary retrofitted structure that surrounds it and that supports the high-end corpo units far above giving the sense that the building has just been built over and nearly covered completely even the street adjacent to it has been built over entering the lobby the lower income nature of this complex becomes even more evident with its dilapidated state of pair it feels gritty lived in and firmly part of the cyberpunk world you really get the sense that you're at the lowest rung of the inner city Society traveling up a Shabby lift to our floor we find through a beaten up old metal door a comfortably sized escape from the noise of the inner city just across from the entry is a shrine along with some other heavily Eastern influence designs like paper lantern and a bonsai tree the seating area is my honest but comfortably sized above the couch is yet another reminder of hyper capitalism with an advertisement screen floating just above occupants heads adjacent you'll find a nice work area flanked by windows that overlooks the river area and the rocket launch pads in the distance so while the apartment is lower on the totem pole the view is actually pretty spectacular and is one of my favorites there's also a small kitchenette in the back and a utilitarian bathroom that's a bit better than what we saw last the color palette of the space is also a bit warmer with some muted colors which are not quite in tropism but also not quite Kitsch something maybe then in between it reminds me of neo-futurism designs that you might have found in a capsule building in Tokyo in the 1980s the bedroom is also a modest size with a cubby capsule style design for its bed area that gives a subtle suggestion that the spaces in industrial design and is kind of like something that's been dropped damn in fact it kind of gives you the sense that architecture in the world of cyberpunk has been industrialized and put into a factory line where even bedrooms are prefabricated in the factory despite this though I find the space really cozy one interesting choice in this floor plan though is that the Gun Room is actually located adjacent to the bedroom instead of the bathroom I think if I were to change something I might have switched the bathroom with the gun room so that there was some better programmatic adjacency but really it's just a nitpick and I really like this apartment foreign [Music] so let's move on now to the Haywood Glen Apartment for a whopping 40 000 Eddies this is a bit of a step up what I find interesting is that it has a lot of subtle details that hint at the state of the world and its inhabitants the apartment is within what appears to be an older structure that's been retrofit with structural supports likely perhaps to help resist earthquakes and or to allow for the building to be extended in height in case you're wondering how I make this differentiation to an Architects or even engineer's eyes it's rather obvious that this is a retrofit as it not only clashes with what appears to be an earlier design but importantly structure is very seldomly exposed in this fashion because it's important to avoid using expensive finishes to protect the metal from corrosion and fire which can severely weaken its low bearing capacity it's a subtle attention detail to make the place and World feel older and in a state of decay requiring such haphazard economical reinforcements in a place where aesthetic for the lower class are a distant impossible luxury stepping on into the interior what we find is what I would interpret as in an industrial design but it probably falls under a cross between CD projekt Red's entropism style and the more contemporary 2077 kit style this style is something that dominates most of night city and what you might read is kind of cyberpunk a style distinguished by vibrant and sometimes flamboyant colors going back to the primer I gave you guys in the beginning of the video however the space is a bit maybe upscale from the standard kit style it's definitely a bit more contemporary to the older kids style that started around the 2000s which you might be more familiar with throughout the entire city the elevator reinforces the reading of its industrial style as well with its clearly industrial gate style door and interior and this leads us directly to the apartment which is in stark contrast with the very low-income surroundings of this building the apartment continues in a similar design then to the lobby but introduces even more high-end finishes namely Woods which are rare and expensive in this dystopian future and other high-end trims like gold what this building may represent then is what we see in our real world now in modern cities where younger wealthier Generations are returning to cities and seek higher living standards in a decaying American inner city the result is often gentrification where developers renovate previously abandoned or lower income spaces or homes into high-end apartments or condos which can appeal to their new wealthier client town which in turn drives up the rental prices of the area displacing locals who comprise the working class of the city this can have an effect of eroding the local sense of community in destroying local culture and it further burdens the working class who now must travel greater distances to work or face homelessness this I imagine is a rather fitting way to interpret it as we are in a hyper-capitalized cyberpunk society in this cyberpunk world and so my mind then turns to the scene just outside the building where you'll find a bunch of homeless people living just next to the building I don't think that this was an accident on the designer's parts they really want to show a contrast between the building that you're living in and the appalling standard of living of those less fortunate who may have lived in the same building you are now just a few years earlier it may just be fiction in the end but it's great world building by cdpr here returning to the design then as is typical with retrofitted industrial spaces where they were originally designed to house large Machinery the room is near double height this allows for designers to split the space horizontally with a new second construction struck structure where they've logically organized the majority of the public and Leisure spaces down below leaving the new Loft for a master bath and bedroom double height space Also allows for some generously tall floor-to-ceiling Windows which leads to the space benefiting from a much deeper natural light penetration even without direct sunlight makes the space feel a bit more comfortable I also really like the subtle use of floor height change and material change to visually subsect the space into smaller or more comfortable social spaces for example the couch is recessed and uses a warm wood and stone finish which contrasts with the darker black wood finishes found near the pool table and bar and kitchenette combo this is actually a strategy we use in the real world to help break down large spaces to make them feel more comfortable to users in the opposite corner from the kitchenette area you'll find one of my favorite moments in this design though it's a combination home office and reading Nook on an elevated interstitial platform it really looked cozy and has a nice view out the window onto the city thanks to its height I personally would love to sit here and read or just relax and listen to music in the corner just next to the entrance is also the stash room this is a space you'll see common to all of these apartments as it's a requirement for the edge Runner trade like the rest it's all business in here with racks to display the various special weapons you can collect throughout the world nothing much to report here returning then to the main space and heading up the staircase will arrive at the bedroom I spoke of earlier which has little physical separation with the other spaces in this room because it's really unnecessary this is a bachelor pad and so there really don't need to be any acoustic or visual separations created between these spaces the bathroom is also then situated smartly just next to the bedroom allowing for Late Night Trips when needed and so I think this space is really well arranged and has a great view out into the city speaking on the use of materials they're suitably catch maybe even neo-kitch which elevates the design to feel much higher end than the other two apartments that we've seen and that makes a lot of sense because this apartment's pretty expensive overall I think this apartment is actually really well arranged it makes use of most of the space extremely well and feels comfortable to inhabit even though it's just a retrofit apartment that was never really designed in the first place to be an apartment but clearly this is a video game and so the fact that they've designed it this way to give you that sense makes it even more successful [Music] but now we arrive at the most expensive apartment that V can acquire in night City located at corpo Plaza for 55 000 Eddies it's it's just a short walk away and an eyesight of the famous Corporal Plaza home to the headquarters of some of the world's most powerful Mega corporations like arasaka militech and biotechnica you might recognize this location then from Edge Runners where it was a backdrop to some major parts of the story an interesting and rather dark detail to this location though is that the apartment is actually directly across from the former site of the original arasaka building which was bombed by Johnny silverhand in 2023 according to the story this suggests a rather morbid reason for yv might have chosen this particular spot I strongly suspect them that the designers are trying to say that silverhand himself has really influenced V's desire to move here are out of some dark desire to look onto what he saw as his greatest Triumph his magnum opus performance as it were where he actually killed 15 000 people again it's it's pretty dark but hey that's the cyberpunk genre for you entering the rather unassuming Lobby from the crowded City Center Street were greeted by a very harsh visually brutal style that cdpr calls neo-militarism which as the name suggests is really brutal dark and even subtly violent with its red undertones the way they've crafted this style is an excellent example of how design can be a storytelling device neo-militarism is the preferred style of the corporate world which dominates the halls of power in this dystopian future cdpr makes use of blacks to visually convey the humorless oppressive nature of the corporate power structure whereas the red accents communicate a sense of underlying dread that violence is waiting for people in this world at any time if they cross somebody or look at them the wrong way even the chandelier above us seems like it's going to crush us the moment we walk in this is certainly no accident by the designers one interesting note here though is that despite the fact that this is an apartment building for people in the upper echelons of society who really control and pull the strings of this world they even themselves can't escape the effects and intrusion of hyper capitalism as is made evident by these advertisements on the wall it suggests that even those in the corporate world are slaves to their own system kind of darken again very cyberpunk if we take a trip up we'll find ourselves in a pretty nice Lobby just outside the apartment itself and after we step in we find ourselves in a surprisingly smaller space than expected however given the location being at the center of the corporate world it parallels the real world where even small apartments in high-end areas can cost the same as full-size homes elsewhere one thing that really jumped out to me on first viewing is that the apartment is designed as a cross between the Kitsch and neo-militarism styles perhaps suggesting these ties to Both Worlds where they started originally as a Corporal and then eventually had to resort to being an edge Runner due to the path of the story like the Glen Apartment there's a kitchenette and bar space flanked by a dining area but here it's a bit more formal than at the Glen and that's probably because it's a bit closer to the Corporal Lifestyle the designers also here once again employed a subtle change to the floor and ceiling height and materials to divide the spaces most notably here in the lounge area I call your attention here to the deliberate use of red once again here to tie it to the neo-militarism style there's clearly a lot more intention with this design than it first meets the eye opposite to the lounge and the dining area we find a separating bamboo screen which gives a bit more privacy to the bed area and employs things like plants and wood which again is a sign of wealth in this dystopian future where these things are very very expensive however despite all this opulence we still find above the bed yet a another reminder of the intrusion of hyper capitalism the cyberpunk world with this advertisement that just floats above your head while you try to sleep kind of disturbing actually but I guess if you live in this world it's kind of normal to you at this point across from the bad is an exposed wardrobe which flanks so well equipped and finished bathroom it's evident to me here then that there was a good understanding of the relationships between different programs like making sure the area that you change is close to the shower and that both are close to the master bedroom it means that the designers here were pretty conscious about just good design in general for floor plans and architecture right across from the foot of the bed though we'll find ourselves in this apartment's Gun Room this one is a slight bit larger than the Loft one and with the others that we've found and it definitely brings a much heavier influence in from neo-militarism with its red lighting and complex pattern Styles overall then this apartment is comfortable but feels Maybe be a bit impersonal and unresolved the first is likely an intentional result of the corporate style it's supposed to feel impersonal but the second is I think more from a large unused space in the center of the room this again makes it feel unresolved and maybe unfinished it might have been better employed elsewhere where you could have made the bedroom maybe a bit larger or the lounge area a bit bigger to know for sure though would require further investigation and floor plan and to give a cdpr credit here optimizing the use of space to feel right is a skill that even seasoned Architects and designers struggle with and it's something that can really only be solved through repeated iterations and exploration overall then I think cyberpunk's environment team did an incredible job on these apartments for V they're not just spaces to store your things but living and breathing parts of this world that have a connection with the story of v and the larger story of cyberpunk has a connection with a particular aspect of night city as well meaning that each one can be attractive to a certain kind of person so if I had to choose which one was more suitable for me and which I like the most is probably going to be Japan town maybe because I live in Asia I don't know but I like the location I love the view and I think the size is really cozy if someone could just kill the gonk then fighting in the other apartment it would be perfect God those guys annoy me but what do you guys think which apartment do you think best suits you and why which one fits your personal story in night City let me know down in the comment section below and as always if you guys love this video and you want to show some sport don't forget to hit that like And subscribe button and don't forget that if you want to support the channel and you're also looking for a VPN service you can check out nordvpn nordvpn.com morphologist where you can get that two-year plan with four extra months free stay safe other Tunes I'll see you in the next one [Music]

Channel: Morphologis

Views: 885,392

Keywords: Cyberpunk 2077, Cyberpunk edgerunners, Edgerunners, Gameplay, Architecture, Apartments, Guide, Tutorial, architectural design, game design, environmental design

Id: QmGxqZ8-2D0

Length: 24min 20sec (1460 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 01 2022