World Building with Architecture

[Music] and also if you can fill out the little flyer or the what is it the survey yeah you can get that done that would be great i would really appreciate feedback on this so everyone's all settled i'll get started my name is sarah bonzer and i'll be talking with you today about world building with architecture and more specifically designing for an authentic experience i know that sounds a lot like some words you're familiar with but authentic specifically relates to how feelings are generated there's a way to get to engaging immersive unique etc without encompassing this trait specifically for something to be perceived and remembered as authentic it can't feel manufactured authenticity is best achieved below the level of

consciousness architecture is actually fantastic at this because it requires no acknowledgement for it to have an impact bernard schumi famously notes architecture cannot satisfy your wildest fantasies but it may exceed the limits set by them i'd imagine the opportunity to capture an audience on it's got great architecture is exceptionally rare but the capacity to make a game unforgettable with the help of architecture appears to be unbounded by genre architecture has the capacity to affect occupants whether it's behaviorally portraying a sense of space or providing a lens through which to perceive information levels work in a similar way organically teaching strategy providing a backdrop for lore and divulging plot and admittedly this is a lot to cover in an hour so here's a quick rundown i'm gonna catch everyone up on relevant architectural theory then we'll look at how it's applied to video games as well as some built structures after getting the hang of it we'll go in

depth into three well-known games as case studies i'll close out with some sources to learn more a little bit about me i'm an artist and a licensed architect in the state of washington i got some degrees from the ohio state university and work as a project architect now and actually there's a very rigorous process to getting a license it's about 5 600 hours of apprenticeship seven tests six years of school and a state mandated thousand hours of the sims no that's not right uh notably theory is actually baked into our professional profession through education whether we use it day to day or not we need it so that we can explain to any client or consultant that we're working with whether they know architectural theory or not because it's good design is not actually a viable defense for an idea this knowledge is the way to keep our concept intact as con

as constraints get layered on so that makes buildings like this look really impressive and as i've mentioned before architecture works without the occupant's knowledge acknowledgement and i wanted to find how that works precisely there are a ton of little indicators scale of material types of openings striation of level and lighting each of those little indicators informs a viewer why when where what and who built this thing even the context provides a lot of information so we see in this one it's actually manufactured materials that clad it that was built in a factory and had to get shipped to site and had to get told to the people that are installing it exactly where those go that's not a brick that's not something that you just lay on in a in a certain order that's not something that one person is trained to do over many buildings that's specific to that single building so that tells you a lot about the intent of what it's trying to convey and a lot of things

about what kind of strategies were employed to create the building these indicators allow a layperson to pick up on characteristics of a building for instance some buildings just look evil shout out to our evil buildings for some of these lines spikes evil going into space forever evil some angles probably evil without knowing anything else about it a first impression actually goes a long way to evoke feelings cerullio figured this out and codified it with these two illustrations of comedic and tragic scenes these sets demonstrate a series of indicators which set the context for how characters are feeling take a moment to compare the two we'll start by looking at the tragic scene the tragic scene has a ton of gravity as the space keeps going back into that set the buildings fall in line and stand at attention enforcing center framing cornices loom over the

street and decorations are carved in stone then we compare this to the comedic scene where the buildings are individually expressive the massing does not appear to have been coordinated overall individuality is expressed through decoration and articulation of colonnades we see a wider variety of architectural styles and these propose a more casual feel to the setting as they're far less subjected to rules and overarching organization so let's look at these again and note the ways they're leaning on the set to use that opportunity to show and not tell unlike relying solely on dialogue for storytelling where you must select a reading level that you're catering to environments have the unique opportunity of displaying layered information to players freeing designers from catering solely to the largest demographic so let's just take a moment to look at how layer levels have been used in the past we'll start with the extrusion of the ground floor and how that's clad in indicative textures

so these are strictly informative they tell you where the bounds of your playable area are from there we got these graphically excellent illustrations of architecture but not necessarily functioning beyond something like a set shortly after we see architecture being used to fill in narrative gaps for players it can be also used to indicate advantageous strategies for upcoming obstacles since then we've seen many sophisticated combat games leverage level design for strategic purposes but what's even more interesting to me is something that's on the cusp of my own reach as an architect empathy this is a fascinating direction for games to move because it can make the problems of others seem familiar and relatable specifically creating an emotional impact on an adult audience requires authenticity i see an unparalleled potential for this medium as it has evolved to this in just two short decades architectural theory

has some ability to help clarify opportunities to impact spaces and how that can affect occupants writing topics can also serve as a guide toward a more critical dialogue for game designers we'll start by looking design in the most utilitarian application introducing a player to a game tutorials can be the most immersion breaking moment in a game the character and the player are at opposite ends of the spectrum presumably the character has been running and jumping for years but the player is being asked to do this for the very first time having control over the environment means supplying information to the player intentionally put simply overt design requires the player to gather information subversive design gives the player information overt design calls for the audience to draw information about complex subjects you can use it to convey history social

norms and political climate from surrounding atmosphere similar to the way you learn about a city's culture by traveling there the urban fabric is heavily influenced by the culture of an area most people can recognize the plan of paris because this bizarro thing happened this guy houseman came in with this plan to get some avenues in there and it took about 75 years to carry out so that threw it into this way different trajectory than any other city giving it a sense of place subversive design conveys information passively like designing a push and pull side for a door handle which looks visually different or tactile transition surfaces for pedestrians going into a vehicular area in louder ways it can direct you to take the stairs instead of an elevator without being tied to a single language we can universally convey a lot of information one concept which architects grapple with is this idea of consciousness

phenomenology is a word that i'll try not to bank on but it breaks down to something that adds to ambiance it registers as a coincidence or a phenomenon and creates an experience below the level of acknowledgement by the occupant plot should register above consciousness as the player needs to have an understanding of why they're providing actions towards a role and foreshadowing as a tool becomes available once that context is understood doom 2 actually uses both very skillfully as information is baked into the game environment providing lore and strategic information to the player it trains the player over a series of levels to navigate the halls of hell more adeptly your character is a paranoid space marine armed with a pistol methodically working his way through a demon stronghold this environment uses lines and lights to direct you through the level soon you'll find yourself pressing up against walls frantically searching for

more supplies doom leverages overt cues to teach the player where to look for supplies using gargoyles and grotesqueries later levels appear to have a ritualistic or religious aesthetic to them items decorating scenes have a strong hierarchical and symmetrical design sensibility these indicators prime the player to imagine answers to questions they have about the environment when monsters spawn or you get dropped into a pit it can be attributed to any of the various reasons your brain came up with this leverages the player's imagination to come up with more convincing reasons than you as a designer could possibly predict for them portal and its sequel also rely on gameplay with gradually increasing complexity according to chris chin at valve the first few puzzles scale from one solution to multiple as the player gains more agency over the character using colored light and iconography the players will gravitate towards

certain areas predictably the grid also provides this burdensome dr backdrop for the test chambers and those gridlines you see really tap into this idea of modular furniture being primarily consumed as oppressive modular materials are classically used in large spaces with no particular interest in hospitality and notably do not tap into fond memories dmvs are riddled with these materials for instance these inherent thought processes allow portal to snap the player into the character's mindset of escape as a result gladys and wheatley dialogue doesn't have to tell you how to feel or what to do this results in an organic and authentic experience for the player given the opportunity to graph their own thoughts onto the canvas as well destiny 2 is interesting because the multiplayer maps of course don't tell you how to navigate and where advantageous locations are but sight lines and organic movement still happen and it brings the fights around the

mountain so focused scrimmage areas migrate as sniping locations perform as a catalyst while the game is technically and graphically excellent the campaign doesn't leverage the layout of the environment in the same way it doesn't provide any inherent way finding this is only evident as a bar because the crucible maps are so good at this in the opening mission homecoming it relies on heavily on voiceovers and hud as a result of this your ghost and vanguards forego some opportunities to directly characterize themselves they actively direct your player through the map this undermines the immersive feel of agency as a result the storyline must keep raising the stakes in order to continue to have an impact on the player to some extent as a designer you must reward your player for pouring their own thoughts into their experience if you set a standard that ceilings are rewarding and worthwhile to look at

you'll train your player to use that information actively if you mail it in you're likely to lose a little bit of trust with the player it's kind of like sig figs how do architects build these expectations we'll go through a quick study noting specific elements of their impacts and for the sake of this talk architecture can be described through its materiality adjacency figure light and scale more complex ideas such as proportion and ratio can be extrapolated from scale for instance zaha hadid uses the contemporary arts center in cincinnati to make art accessible she uses a variety of tactics to achieve that accessibility tackling it from different directions so we'll take a moment to get acquainted with hadid's masterpiece hadid ushers in the public by continuing this concrete from the sidewalk

up the building in the wall the gesture allows the concrete to characterize itself through texture it's scored and rough at the sidewalk and honed in the lobby and it has this formwork texture as it turns up into the wall as a structural material the massing of the building relies on sliding boxes indicating function she shows how exhibition spaces are laid out via the facade direct sunlight isn't good for art therefore the space will be devoid of functional windows this indicates individual collections and creates a hierarchy for their understanding and relationships natural light indicates public space it's completely glazed and not just punched openings the vertical scale the public space also allows for natural light to reach deep into the structure and i'll have you note that the entire wall is that window it's a curtain wall and it goes up that chasm that is the stair well that you'll see here the exaggerating light exaggerated lighting contrasts the

public space from the exhibit areas which cannot be naturally lit this provides a subversive cue for the occupant to speak quietly or move slowly in gallery spaces while still providing a visual relationship to that vertical circulation so there's a lot of moving pieces in this one and they all work to make art seem more accessible hadid pursues motive from a variety of angles and uses multiple design tools this adds to the impact and legibility but also takes on an opportunity for improvement for future architects to use it as inspiration we'll analyze three games two aaa titles and one of them is indie but pretty well known i chose popular games for the case studies such that most of the audience will be familiar with the story and the lore these games hold architecture accountable for different aspects of world building and i'll break down the opportunities they chose to take as well as a few they might have missed

breath of the wild uses architecture to communicate cultural values and history fallout 3 uses it to cohesively tell a non-linear story inside uses it in lieu of dialogue and text to tell a story fyi there will be spoilers i'll start with breath of the wild my favorite part of this game was seeing the villages they established link as a visitor which adds to the authenticity the lore has been built up by preceding legend of zelda games but designers don't rely on that alone each village requires link to earn an augment to reach or move through the area creating a destination as opposed to something you just stumble upon which overall is a very successful strategy for an open world game in fact the open nature of this world has created an emphasis on profile as a defining navigational feature for instance the stables look like horses if you see them from a distance you can tell you need to put your horse there you're drawn to its profile which actually exists in real life

architecture but it's not nearly as effective architecture parallel air speaking architecture visually describes its own function modern parlant has become synonymous with these literal recreations of profile it's an attention-hungry move and the worst part about it is that they're just boxes on the inside that's just like a concrete sculpture that's been put over a box it's gross but breath of the wild commits to it which allows the player to get a little bit more information out of the skyline it's composed of shapes and that are already recognizable that can provide a meaning to things before you have to learn about them this gives the player agency allowing inherent recognition skills to pay off it's also used as a primary design feature for the divine beasts they have a cohesive model with the interior adhering to the exterior envelope and that makes it way better actually it

creates this great exquisite corpse because you can even rotate the parts around so we'll focus on the redo village which is elevated by a nearby landscape the divine beast is perched at the top of the spire just like a bird and the air drafts in the area pick up similar to turbulence around real mountains the village is lightweight wood frame construction fabric is a cladding material which is uniquely advantaged in virtual architecture and ritos like birds can fly so wind direction is important to them so feathers and fabric could feasibly serve a purpose this allows visual correlation also to fuselages and gliders and it's great considering how that contrasts the goron's heavy timber construction and actually this is something we use in real life a heavy timber is actually a fire resistant it creates a char around the outside which prevents it from burning down as easily as lightweight wood frame

construction so it works two-fold as the gorons actually have very large hands and would most likely not care to articulate their handrails with fine details so there's a lot of ways the level characterizes itself but it also manages to foreshadow events as well just like movies the level designers environment artists decorated these scenes with props it's exceptionally impressive that these work after giving the camera controls to a player the profile of the hut is bell shaped and framed out of wood which ends up looking like a bird cage but it also matches the profile of that shrine more closely than any of the other buildings this introduces the concept as what we call a dialectic providing two ends of the spectrum embedded stone versus elevated wood frame and the concept of primitive hut is taught this way by two warring concepts perrault and loggier on opposite ends of the spectrum parole proposes that

architecture started with a hut embedded in the earth we consider this vernacular architecture or architecture without without architects logie proposes that it happened the first time uh columns and in tablature were used but if this was the case i don't know if that's happened yet i haven't seen trees do that introducing both allows that profile to work in two ways and allows the player to fill in gaps allowing some indication of the origin of that design and as with every great accomplishment there's always some way to evolve or improve the concept so i'd say the next step would be to create slightly more varied typologies from the exterior providing exterior variety to the huts could allow more characterization and create a spectrum of viable rito style huts they're not distinctive from the exterior which is odd as they're not intended to be manufactured precise perhaps but the organic nature of the layout would also indicate that it's not the intended

takeaway shops and interactive huts require you to pass through the threshold to distinguish function this problem is of course alleviated by showing certain items for sale or these little chick hammocks which are kind of cute they use colored textiles as well to customize the interior so as i mentioned before breath of the wild does an excellent job introducing a variety of cultures it provides comparable design moments to demonstrate nuanced information that can be distinguished between different villages as well moving on to fallout 3 it was an ambitious reboot to an isometric series it indicates it introduces concrete visualizations to an already established world which is hard the series is laden with lore and subplots which allow an experience to become more or less catered to each player the landmark buildings are where the level designers chose to convey more abstract goals so that's what i'm going to be using as a specific critique and not

mention negativity but there are a lot of reasonable decisions that i believe led to a less than impactful location 10 penny tower i think there's a lot we can learn from this though so i'll start with the datum of expectation megaton had a lot of roles in this game primarily it establishes that data it uses materials and layout to convey a concept of makeshift space planning they also established the distinction between friendly and hostile settlements by walling the city off circular walled cities historically have indicated a culturally important epicenter which is true in megaton everything has a view of that bomb centrally located in the city it showcases constraints of new cities lacking means to fabricate and time to design and construct this contributes to the characterization of the industrious wastelanders they are settling and developing not only single structures but

managed to create a somewhat cohesive city from scraps so we see a fuselage from a plane underperforming as its previous life was flying through the air now it's just simply a settlement so there are a lot of things that indicate to us that this is a fallen from what it previously manufactured civilization which is very interesting and very quick to get that information to the player rivet city creates a uniquely restrictive environment the city is hosted on a retired aircraft carrier which is a highly engineered vessel with precise openings unlike megaton these parts were not scrapped and customized as a result the citizens keep this structured lifestyle and it feels restrictive even to the extent that you must get permission to access it via the drawbridge the mall leveraged inspiration from existing architecture very well here even if you haven't been to the united states capital you know what it looks like it's iconic

and even if you haven't seen it the style of architecture is so formulaic it's enough to demonstrate what's missing based on what remains the practicality of imposing asymmetrical damage to a one symmetrical building has an apparent impact on the player so given all that information let's take a look at temp any tower it's approached somewhat early in the game you get the marker for it after exploring only one city prior to this it holds the quest which presents the first massive moral decision you must make with your character and spoiler alert you're positioned to arm that bomb in megaton city and destroy it breadcrumbs prepare you for this though learning how to arm the bomb confirming the quest bartering for the reward and it will land you some seriously bad karma if you go through with it 10 penny tower is where you push that button this tower is also one of the best preserved buildings in the fallout world for a while at least which creates an

opportunity to represent what life was like in higher fidelity than any other exterior environment it also has the opportunity to justify its longevity with building materials and it may seem nitpicky but all the rooms have kind of look like tunnels they lack windows and for the tallest building in the wasteland i would think that this would be kind of a selling point but again that's probably just because of engine limitations and without a lot of sleuthing we can look that look at the new willard hotel and see the similarities it's a historically tall building in washington dc and it's not a tower though and that's why i think 10 penny looks a little bit squat early skyscrapers typically use primarily vertically vertical articulation architects were actually over the moon about how high they could build and as a result couldn't even about a hundred years later architects

finally got over themselves and started exploring horizontal articulation you can see the spandrel panels and floor plates articulating the iconic lever house and the aqua tower provides modulation in the x-axis at the cost of practicality because now it is actually just a radiator the new wheeled hotel is actually a block building which is why it's got that horizontal banding also the hotel is massive compared to its neighbors the city probably had restrictions on how tall building could be on that plot of land it's a very courteous building though because it gives back a little bit of space on that intersection as you can see that chamfered corner but then it does this thing that i have actually done myself i feel really bad about this um that cornice that balcony actually just shields the the view for the pedestrian so it looks like the building's about 40 feet shorter i've had to do this i don't feel great about it

the vaulted roof structure also foregoes that upper edge so it's hiding its penthouse floor as it's timidly approaching its footprint so when we see temp anytime mimic these things it appears ashamed of its size fighting to appear shorter we also don't see anything that could pick another side of 10 penny outside of his dialogue something like strong 90 degree corners could imply a rigid unchanging nature as he's greeted with the wasteland but refuses to adapt also i'm still bummed about that windows thing choosing reference material requires some insight on why it's working in its current context in fact if you you end up inheriting a lot of solutions to other people's problems i could imagine a seemingly valid argument for this design as it relies on maybe existing in the palette of the potomac it's an existing building in the area that would make sense but it's easier to defend discrete moves and motives by referencing

symbolic justification this allows for more correct answers to your problem as opposed to putting collaborators in a take it or leave it situation as well i also saw this alternate concept art i don't know why this didn't make it in i could probably think of a thousand reasons why i couldn't make it in but it does adhere better architecturally so it has those 90 degree corners which are really strong it also has a bunch of different architectural styles which is indicative of a single payer and it does this wedding cake thing where it builds slowly up to that decision point and that could have a good correlation to the way you follow those bread crumbs fallout ultimately does a fantastic job with storytelling i spent 300 hours in this game and i didn't feel constrained by an order of levels so no matter what path i took each did their part to further illustrate the world and the culture of the wastelanders

now inside was a remarkable game and i will warn you spoilers on this one i'm saying that because it is a really good reveal but the game relies on context and gameplay to reveal the plot there are a lot of clever decisions which capitalize on the constraints and requirements these decisions are leveraged to challenge the player to solve this meta puzzle introducing a desire to know why you're here and what you're doing play dead uses this set to uh this to set up and train the player under a certain set of rules and has them develop habits and strategies this allows for the reversal at the finale to have much more of an impact for architects experience design and forced perspective are challenging to maintain for multiple hours one building does come to mind which provides prolonged empathetic experiences leapskin's jewish museum in berlin

jar is its occupants with subtly disorienting and harsh conditions in order to simulate the toll an environment can take on a human the color palette is reduced to mid gray tones forcing occupants to use light to distinguish elements soft shadows strain the viewer to distinguish similar elements and harsh lights produce stressful impairment on eyes by providing too much contrast narrow windows consistently cover the exterior providing different level of lights through the same mechanic that thin rectangular void by rotating those you've actually created a variety of conditions which can be used to do that subtle and stark thing that was messing with people's eyes many museums rely on layout and lighting to break up displays in an attempt to help viewers read for more than comprehension but empathy you're asking the visitor to learn a lot by giving them breaks between exhibits you allow them

to rebuild their stamina and learn more these sharp corners provide an uneasy feeling throughout the entire journey granting temporary reprieve between spaces but not letting the visitor feel rested or have a clear path forward to the end liebskin treats the museum as an extension of the collection a machine for creating feeling not just something people move through inside forces a reckoning with the players seemingly at ease the player must use spatial and visual indicators to discern meaning about their experience like lighting building layout material characteristics and area of effect by providing high fidelity details the onus falls on the player to distinguish content in play dead's previous hit limbo we see a blur as things fall out of focus inside crisp backdrops indicate their value as a narrative element there's something that's important to you

they also work to codify planes of action early in the game the smaller challenges train the player to focus on opportunities presented in a single plane while referencing mid-ground and background for information so the scenes can actually be dissected so in this one we see that we have control over the chicks and we also have control over the lever that's in the foreground that's lit by that lamp as soon as we pull the lever we lose control of the chicks as they go into the background poor things the same can be said about this scene where you have control over your player in the foreground and have a start to learn how to control the background but they keep the plane separated as you don't have full control yet so we're going to use that word again phenomenology it's when you're fed information and it stays below the level of consciousness

the subtlety of clues is actually held as a datum in this game the player's consciousness actually fluctuates when they're tasked with challenges platforming challenges come in ways switching you between survival and understanding the levels the environment is consistently broadcasting clues to a player on a basis of whether they're in control or following along so two different players would actually have two vastly different experiences and maybe get the same story out of it even though they've been pre presented with the same material so this is like a personal problem for me but i'm not good at platforming and this was a really hard part for me i didn't even notice the people in the background that were watching me do this which completely changes the scene and then if i was even better at it i'd have noticed that bus in the background that brought them which indicates an institutional portion of their presence and that would have completely changed the way i perceived that moment in the

game they also do this great thing where the materiality shifts from something seemingly less formal and rustic to something maybe a little bit more industrial and then gets curved glass at some point and it has a scientific look a life cycle that a lot of technology has from origin to materialization or monetization such as airplanes for instance i don't have many critiques of this game it masters the use of passive and active design cues by fluctuating the level of attention the player has the capacity to spend outside of platforming this provides an allegory for seeing the forest beyond the trees which ends up being tough to simulate so going back on that initial thought designing for an authentic experience i think it boils down to who the

perceived designer is the environment has the opportunity to feel as if it's been designed by an inhabitant of the world studying architecture and building taste can improve the ease at which you design for a varied contexts another way to build taste is by looking at the way directors use existing buildings as sets directors frame the camera and change lightings to re-characterize a space these settings sculpt the general perception of spaces because it feels like they were built just for these moments so the way the bradbury building felt when you're watching blade runner versus 500 days of summer is dramatically different and there has a lot to do with the closeness of the characters to the environment it also has a lot to do with the special effects that are involved so there's a lot of things that you can learn that aren't necessarily even in the structure of a building that can be

conveyed through a variety of means further mastery of this medium also allows movie set designers to propose new contexts for style learned or adapted from a real built structure so we see frank lloyd wright's ennis house actually performing very well in the new environment of blade runner in deckard's department if you do like books i've come up with a pretty good list the first book is a good place to start if you're looking for where this line of study could take you the next two are a lot and it might take some re-reading but will certainly broaden your horizons that last one is like our version of google it can help you find critics or authors sorted by topics but it's nothing compared to the recommended reading that came with the original sims game

i cherry picked the ones that were literally part of my curriculum which is actually crucial to the max's path to licensure in all 50 states thank you and i actually provided bonus slides in case anyone asks a question that i had in another slideshow version of this yeah yeah and feel free to introduce yourself with your first name get to know people hi i'm steve so uh in reality no design is ever truly realized there's always some sort of socio-political pressure that comes in in the construction of a building and architectural theory rarely acknowledges this

i have a background in structural architectural engineering and in school i was taught that architects were the designers of buildings when the reality is architects plus politicians plus whatever there's a lot that zoning does there's a lot that goes in there now similar to this if you're a level designer you're an artist uh you rarely have pressures beyond your own um your own ideas or the ideas of your art team or the ideas of your design team for how space is going to be realized in suggesting that we apply architectural theory to the design of a space without also um emphasizing that we we should consider what the realities of the construction of a space are uh do you think that there's a risk that we might give people the wrong impression of how how design is realized and sort of just just be teaching them the the the theory um in in a vacuum or do you think that this is something that architectural theory

can handle like i don't know if we need like fake politicians that come in um i would say that the value of virtual architecture maybe doesn't have to be parallel with the value of built architecture i would say that the um paper architects of the 70s like um you've activated one of my trap cards i was going to mention the metabolists but levious woods um has done a lot of writing on architecture without the bounds of politics and there are critics that do evaluate how politics do affect architecture and that could be an interesting way to kind of look at that i think half-life actually does a pretty nice job at introducing that because they have the combine and the like kind of old existing architecture and that kind of war is i think visible through the sets that they choose to

create so i think that there is kind of an interesting dialogue that can be kind of approached but doesn't necessarily have to be does that answer your question yeah okay any other questions all right sorry if this question is pretty general but how do you go about evoking dread or unease through architecture like do you have an example from the game or in the real world um yeah i would say that things like forced perspective height and things that are generally from a worm's eye view actually um you can do a lot to evoke dread not that architects can typically do this we are actually like under a hippocratic oath of a type uh to design nice spaces for people um but yeah there are a lot of things

like leap skins work in the jewish museum in berlin but also yeah memorials have a very solemn look to them i would say dread is something that's usually evoked by camera angles i would i would say most actively but gothic architecture has a good amount of it does that help yeah cool hi i'm john um sorry you said names uh i just want to say thank you this talk is like really refreshing and articulate uh thanks want to throw out there a lot of the work that i'm done i'm interested in is often uh centered on kind of like the the way that spaces manifest the things that you're talking about and i think that like you mentioned landscapes at one point in the talk and i this is such a broad topic that it's hard for me to be like what's what's like the way you would do this

sort of thing but i don't know if you had any suggestions for places to look for like the way that or like readings for the way on the way that like these buildings and for example like breath of the wild exist in a grander landscape and kind of take a context from that i know like um i'm i'm from chicago and like the iit is like pretty famous architectural school i think they're like school or student like commons areas like used to be a park and then they just plopped a building on top of it and i was heard that described as post-modernist architecture abound actually they did maintain the sidewalks in that yeah yeah so they use the tiling of the floor to keep the same like pathways through i would say that uh as far as landscape goes there's a lot that actually uh architects have designed uh utopian societies very often and so maybe looking in that direction

of like what is a utopian society but also um the way that landscape architects use like keyholes for instance which is like kind of using sight lines to direct views in older gardens like gosh versailles versailles a really good place to kind of really delve into the depth that you can put into a garden they had these aesop fables like automatons that were powered with water in just a certain part of the park so it's a very interesting thing to read about cool thank you this is kind of a strange question i guess um but i've i've interacted with people who are working in all different sorts of other disciplines artists uh architects people making films people working the ad industry authors um and most of them have absolutely no interest in video games let alone have put in 300 hours into fallout 3.

so i'm wondering if you could i mean you talked a lot about your background as an architect but could you talk a little bit about your background as a gamer oh and what made you want to come and present a video game conference um probably gym too um no actually i usually don't play video games with my co-workers because they don't play video games um no i think that it provo it provides a great opportunity for um virtual spaces to have an impact on people in a way that like you're mentioning politics really does prevent a lot of architects from realizing a design the way they had originally intended or of course we are kind of a patron based profession so we require someone else's money in order to realize our visions so there's a lot of catering to the client in fact you've activated another one um we fall on these crutches a lot as designers which is a fair kind of this is philip

johnson's list by the way i can't take credit but these are a lot of things that designers of architecture use to support themselves more than their actual designs um as far as games that i like to play i'm playing fortnite right now love that and uh gosh i really put a lot of time in a risk of rain that's been surprisingly a great one it's one of those ones that you can like again like put your own thoughts and your imagination into because it lacks like a realistic detail and i kind of like those ones does that answer everything great hi my question comes from an art creation point of view a lot of the time we are tasks tasked with creating a certain style of architecture or a certain kind of building but the level design spaces that we're working with are not the same type of spaces you'd get from that style and so when it comes to this kind of um

you know mashing two incompatible things together we often end up with you know unconvincing you know uh yeah yeah i see what you're saying so um if you had any advice on how to you know create a good style you know as long as it says that you know this is an aztec building even if it's not you know made out of uh solid huge stone monolithic blocks or something like that you know like how to how to put a style facade or a front on a building space that doesn't necessarily suit their style of architecture yeah i would say the the most important thing you could do is frame the views in the same way if if that's at all possible because like um the greeks had imagined the best way to view a building was kind of an angle of it and so you have a better idea of the whole thing instead just flat on and so doing tricks like that could also help but then

yeah like you're saying pick up individual parts that you believe have the essence of i would say materials and camera angles go a long way for that but also the the proportions of things so if you have the opportunity to read anything about the proportions that were used maybe talking with your gray boxer about those and seeing if you can kind of meet in the middle yeah if that's at all possible yeah there was a talk uh sort of relating to that called the nature of order in game narrative but it was very very architecturally based on tuesday i think they had something called the 15 rules and one of them was um scale of scale of detail so you know from small scale to uh large scale in terms of details um was one of those rules that just reminded me so um yeah i think that pretty much answers it but um it's it's very ideal you know like talking about the architecture is very

sort of theoretical and ideal whereas like the actual implementation is never quite so um yeah yeah yeah it's never so cut and dry um i would say also picking out something that sticks out to you in the photographs if you see any photographs or uh documentation of it finding finding a quirk in there and really committing to that maybe embellishing it yeah that's a that's a good one thank you um and uh christopher and in video games we don't have to necessarily live by the restrictions of physics or geometry or anything like that if you've played anti-chamber he does really interesting things with space that is impossible in our mind and even in like dream sequences and even aaa games and other indie games there's a lot of tricks that can be done with space um is there any i guess literature research that's been done by architecture even though it's not exactly applicable to architecture and how the fundamental principles could

apply to those sorts of spaces gosh i know i know there's a okay there was a lot of research done in the 90s because people were talking about perspective as it relates to matching camera angles and there was a gosh i know kipnis talked about this he's a critic as well um but there's all i'll email you there there are people that have talked about the warping of perspective we call it force perspective there is a classical uh example of it in oh gosh i forgot it's been a while but yeah there is a classic example of just the set that goes back into space but it truly doesn't it is manipulated it in a way so thank you hi i'm grace i had two questions and actually you just covered one of them for the most part um in terms of kind of bending that reality versus not

reality have you ever found ways where it's gone too far before where it's a little unsettling when it's unrealistic oh gosh i kind of like when it's unsettling though because that that means that it's trying harder to hit its character um i thought sly cooper was really on the edge that was one that really stuck out to me as cartoony buildings that take a like entice which is the embellishment of the width of a column to like the ends of what i believe to be reasonable uh but that was also like a game that really did captivate me i thought that the colors that they chose and the um organization of the cities actually did bring out a lot of value in the architecture that they designed so yeah i think that that's kind of a fun opportunity for game developers to take so since there's no one else here can i ask the other question yeah can we see the slide again that had like the resources at the end oh yeah do you want the virtual version or the

like the list one because i was like going to read it yeah yeah see that fast yeah you can see yeah this one yes thank you oh this one yeah wait can you do both of them yes these will be on the thing though the vault okay that works uh yeah sorry i went a little bit fast too thank you no problem any other questions i probably can't help you with your foundations for your decks or houses or anything but you guys want to know about elevators i can probably take a crack at that i have a question yeah so just curious your perspective the you know we mankind going out to space and gravity maybe not being a factor in the way we build things how do you think that could possibly evolve into new forms of architecture oh i think

we're going to go straight back to the geodesic dome so uh buckminster fuller was this great guy that came up with the damaxion sleep cycle even and so he like proposed this way that you can get like two hour segments of sleep but he was remarkable at designing these things that may not necessarily need to be architectural in the sense that they follow these classical rules he took a more engineering approach to architecture and came up with these really great things so i think we'll kind of go back to the 70s and kind of look at the way that architecture was designed back then before we move forward in another way so yeah like weirder things um this guy this is kind of this what the speculative architecture of the 70s looked like they were they were just like imagining what the world of the future was going to be and here we are without balloons

you guys just want to see some cool architects all right so this guy's my favorite era siren he did the twa terminal uh this is actually a real life building it was like sculpted out of concrete i'm surprised i'm surprised that i haven't seen many things like this in games uh it's like one one just cohesive structure that looks like it was carved out of something you know uh this is eric owen moss's anjawat project it was speculative but um yeah he kind of proposes the juxtaposition between like modern and um existing architecture i think that's kind of neat of course my man lebus woods kind of proposing the insanity he's actually um he's passed away but he wrote a blog before he he passed away and it's actually

really great it's really accessible i would say this stuff is weird hey duck is weird uh but he's great uh piranesi is actually referenced often when people talk about architecture uh it's it's just the complexity as it goes back into space is is very compelling i would say this guy is currently running cyarc uh it's it's kind of the way that uh we call it parametrism but it's the way that we're using a procedural generation of elements right now we're kind of end users to these things so like the scales on the buildings are kind of a weird feature zaha's work this is some of her newer stuff um it's a mall in china it's pretty great she's she was prolific uh one of uh actually she was the first female pritzker prize winner and if you guys are looking to learn more about architects pritzker prize winners are

kind of our best bet uh this is probably the most lore of architecture you can pack into a single house alvaro alta's villa maria uh sugar oban is a master of just this new architectural style that's coming to china he's really defining a a new look i think it's pretty great gaudi gowdy is the best this one's casabatlow these are designed to look like bones if you notice the columns are bones and so it's like this weird version of organic architecture sauna has these very clean spaces so if you're trying to make something look futuristic and clean you can draw inspiration from them they use pillow t's or columns without capitals or bases let's see yeah that's what i got for you second smaller presentation

any other questions well thank you guys for coming