This is Us: Play Without Spectators

This thesis challenges architecture to be a social, collaborative instrument of change, manifesting itself in the form of an interactive multiplayer game where we can all be included. “This is Us” poses the question as to whether we need a singular Master Architect in the architectural industry anymore, and whether collective intelligence can be more beneficial for architectural production.
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Through the gaze of a digital self, the designer aims to look at the work from a first person perspective - rejecting traditional notions of top down, self-removed architectural production and thus explores how we can design architecture locally from a very human perspective within a digital environment. The interactive game-like environment allows for multiple threads of collaboration between a diverse set of people from all across the world, all with varying knowledge.
 
My job here was to create a framework with the ideal balance between ability and constraints, where the architectural outcome is predicated on the designed constraints but it allows all users, of varying ability, to generate architecture which would be otherwise impossible without the knowledge gained over the 7 year period of study - the current timeframe for an architectural education.
 
I propose that we gamify all architectural processes in order to celebrate the architecture for all, where no hierarchy is assigned directly to any players based on ability. The created framework was tested by asking three non-architects to work in collaboration, where they imagined how cities would expand in the future beyond the traditional linear framework architecture is accustomed too.