Gaming Engines are allowing life-like (or less-so) worlds to be simulated in real-time. Where does this technology leave architects? With an expanded field of operation or a narrowed scope of actual buildings catering to tactile, aromatic and acoustic experience?

As reported in the Economist’s Technology Quarterly, new Disney series, The Mandalorian, supersedes green screens with newly super-scaled mixed-reality. (1) An array of over a thousand LED screens acts as a panaromic backdrop for the live-action, its Unreal Engine-generated photorealistic imagery adjusting to camera angles and reflecting off armour. Invented by Lucas Films, from the big-budget universe of blockbuster movie-making, could this ‘stagecraft’ technology trickle down to Architects, as nurbs modellers made their way from aeronautical engineering to desktop rhino (revolutionising starchitecture and our cityscapes? (2)

The same technology was utilised in Westworld season three, a mash-up of cross-continental imagery including a good dash of Singapore (shout-out to our friends at MSDO for their wonderful work at Atlas Bar). (3) Calatrava’s City of Arts and Sciences complex was artfully recreated as the headquarters of Delos. Elsewhere in the series it was not completed buildings polished up and re-presented but the unrealised work of advisor Bjaerke Ingels that populated 2052 LA. (4) In future, a gamefied globe may be a more appealing platform for architects than the gravity of the real world. (5)

At the domestic scale, simulation offers environmental benefits. Rather than ship locally-available appliances from all over the world to Sweden for photoshoots, entire catalogues of IKEA are computer-generated. The scenes speak to market nuance and hyper-customisation while actually representing industrial-scale production, an opportunity for any Architect who chooses to sell models online (while not diverging too far from the lauded intent of case study houses).

Technology is broadening architectural practice – offering better communication tools, more places (real or virtual) to experiment with design and a wider audience for our product. However the examples above only address the visual and aural aspects of environmental design. Other senses, touch, taste, smell and proprioception (the awareness of one’s body as it moves in space) remain the domain of built architecture – where live action is the focus, not the set.

1. https://www.economist.com/technology-quarterly/2020/10/01/virtual-environments-are-being-used-everywhere

2. https://www.chaosgroup.com/blog/zaha-hadid-architects-on-the-tech-behind-its-iconic-designs

3.  https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a31822923/westworld-season-3-filming-shooting-locations/

4. https://www.vulture.com/2020/03/westworld-season-3-future-architecture.html

5. https://www.architectmagazine.com/design/culture/why-tomorrowland-should-never-come_o