videogame urbanism
The Videogame Urbanism studio is a one year Masters programme as part of Urban Design at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. The studio is directed by You+Pea (Sandra Youkhana and Luke Caspar Pearson).
We use game engine technologies to conceptualise and realise urban design projects. One of the studio’s missions is to expand the field of media through which architecture and urbanism can be practiced, embracing the interactive nature of game worlds and their increasing familiarity to large amounts of people.
We examine how the future of cities and their regulations can be communicated to new audiences and challenged through game technologies. We use speculative game scenarios drawn from real world research that incorporate narrative as well as architectural theory into their structure.
Adopting games as tools allows us to question the forces and systems that shape contemporary urbanism, and in turn develop virtual worlds that challenge existing power structures.
By incorporating real world information and data sets into games, we allow players to directly uncover information about cities through play. Since its inception, Videogame Urbanism has produced over forty games (and counting) of varying complexity and scope.
For enquiries please contact: studio@youandpea.com