Architecture and Videogames: Intersecting Worlds

This book explores and affirms the emergent symbiosis between videogames and architecture, including insights from a diverse range of disciplines.

With contributions from authorities in both architecture and videogame industries, it examines how videogames as a medium have enlightened the public about the built environments of the past, offered heightened awareness of our current urban context, and presented inspiration for the future directions of architecture. A relatively nascent medium, videogames have rapidly transitioned from cultural novelty to architectural prophet over the past 50 years. That videogames serve as an interactive proxy for the real world is merely a gateway into just how pervasive and potent the medium is in architectural praxis.

If architecture is a synthesis of cultural value and videogames are a dominant cultural medium of today, how will they influence the architecture of tomorrow? Come find out with drinks, friends and conversation with book editors and contributors Ryan Scavnicky, Jose Sanchez, Viola Ago, Tatiana Estrina.

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Ryan Scavnicky (Scav) is a storyteller using memes, TikToks, group chats, Twitch broadcasts, Discord servers, print media, and the Extra Office YouTube Channel to create insightful commentary by challenging the status quo of disciplinary boundaries. He is the "Godfather of Architecture Memes" according to Architectural Digest, and recently authored the eponymous essay for a book by the renowned photographer Iwan Baan called Bread and Circuses: Rome and Las Vegas. Scav is an Assistant Professor at Marywood University School of Architecture, where he launched and now coordinates the groundbreaking Bachelors of Virtual Architecture program. @sssscavvvv

Viola Ago (b. Lushnjë, Albania) is interested in architecture’s role in a world inhabited with visible and invisible forms of duress. Her focus in the affective conditions of war and conflict ridden territories has guided her investigations towards a design research project that looks at the aesthetic and formal agency of destruction and disorder. Viola is the director of MIRACLES Architecture and an assistant professor at the Toronto Metropolitan University. @violaago

Jose Sanchez is an Architect, Game Designer, and Theorist based in Detroit, Michigan. He is the director of the Plethora Project, a research studio investing in the future of the propagation of architectural design knowledge. He is the creator of the video games Block’hood and Common’hood, digital social platforms that aid the authoring of architectural and ecological thinking to non-expert audiences. He is currently at the University of Michigan, where he is an Associate Professor at the Taubman College School of Architecture. His research “Architecture for the Commons” designs and interrogates social media platforms as tools with the potential to author architectural content in the public domain. @jomasan

Tatiana Estrina is a designer and creative coder, currently pursuing a graduate degree at MIT. Merging her interests in architecture and computer science, her work delves into digital realms, design computation, and the horizon of futurological fabulation.

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Head Hi is an organization dedicated to art, architecture, design and sound specializing in publications and cultural programming with an espresso bar located in Fort Greene, Brooklyn by the Navy Yard. We feature a curated selection of publications from around the globe. Working with local and international artists, designers, publishers, and organizations in various fields, Head Hi is a space for exploration and interaction that hosts talks, book launches, exhibitions, music, performances and other events. Head Hi Fi enhances the experience of sound in the space with its vintage Klipsch La Scala speakers.