Jonathan Turner

For better or worse humanity is heading down the virtual rabbit hole. We’re trading an increasingly hostile natural environment for a socially networked and commercially driven artificial one. Whether it’s the bedrooms of YouTube streaming stars, the augmented Pokestops of Pokemon Go, the virtual tourism of the latest humanitarian crisis or even the “airspace” of Airbnb; we are witnessing a dramatic transformation of what occupying space means.

So where are these dramatic spatial paradigm shifts occurring? Who owns and occupies these spaces? Who are the architects and what historical and ethical foundations are they working from? What world do they want to build for humanity and where does the creative individual fit into it? Will it be a walled garden, a role-playing adventure or a tool for creating more worlds?

The course will ask students to embrace the role of virtual architect, not in the traditional brick-and-mortar sense of constructing shelter, but in terms of the engagement with the raw concept of space. However, this virtual space must be considered and evaluated as a “site” that is activated and occupied by real people and all the limitations of physical space that they bring with them from the real world. This is the foundation of synthetic architecture; simulated space met with biological perception.

This conceptual architecture is free from the confines of physics but host to a whole new set of questions: How do we embrace the human factors of a dimensionless environment? How do we make or encourage meaningful interactions within the limits of current technology? New models of interaction must inform and shape the architecture of virtual space – what does that look like? How can architecture and aesthetics inform the creation of virtual environments and immersive narratives? How do we acutely consider the psychological and social impacts of the worlds we design and what is the metaphorical ground plane to make sense of this virtual world, unbound by physics?