Virtual Architecture and SpaceTimeCraft

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Long-term research project investigating forms of architecture aesthetics and navigable experience specific to digital media, culminating in the upcoming doctoral dissertation at Aalto ARTS titled SpaceTimeCraft, expected in 2025.

The project explores the aesthetic experience of movement specific to physically inconstructible virtual environments. This is the experience in interactive spatiotemporal environments which are impossible to construct or come across in physical reality, but are only experienceable through immersive digital media such as VR and videogames. This theme is explored through cross-disciplinary research parallel to applied prototyping exploring the case study of procedurally generated low-dimensional non-Euclidean virtual environments. The aim of the project is to provide a unifying framework for understanding, analyzing, and developing virtual navigable experience, with a view towards enabling the design of novel forms of experience that can help expand what we currently conceive as experienceable by the human sensory apparatus.

The project follows an integrative methodology, and spans multiple research approaches including:

exploratory gamemaking and VR development;
hardware prototyping;
media archeology of the evolution of digital design software, VR technologies, and videogames;
original publications in the context of architecture, artistic research, and game studies; as well as
development and teaching of original courses in gamemaking and VR development.

The project was initiated following the development of project Anywhere at ETH Zurich in 2014. It was developed further through interdisciplinary research and publishing, as well as through extensive teaching of original curricula on experimental game and VR development, including the Virtual Spaces Master Studio at TU Graz (2016-2017), as well as multiple shorter workshops. Aspects of this research have been informed through studies in computer music and spatial audio at the renowned Institute of Electronic Music of KU Graz conducted between 2018 and 2019. In late 2019, this was formalized into a doctoral research project at Aalto University, School of Arts, within the context of the Experience Design project funded by the Research Council of Finland, titled: SpaceTimeCraft: Integrative Research through Design into the Experience of Virtual Navigation, with its defense expected in 2025.

See below for a list of related publications and presentations.

Other than Text: Media Used in Game Studies Publications

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 14:23:09 +0300

Publication history

I originally wrote this paper in late 2021.

It was submitted in January 2022 for the conference …

Design research thesis course

Mon, 07 Feb 2022 16:43:14 +0300

Bachelor thesis course tutor and thesis advisor for the English-language Design BA program taught by Oscar Person and Namkyu Chun. Department of Design, Aalto University, School of ARTS, 2022.

Advisor for the theses:

Pakarinen, Ilona. ‘Community Driven Anti-Harassment Strategies for MMOGs’. Bachelor Thesis, Aalto University, School of Art and Design, 2022. Aalto ARTS. https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202207034373.
Reti Kilvet. ‘Nudging for Sustainable Fashion Consumption: A Concept Design Based on Expert and Consumer Analysis’. Bachelor Thesis, Aalto University, School of Art and Design, 2022. Aalto ARTS. https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202301221368.

design research | studio any

Virtual Architecture and SpaceTimeCraft

Other than Text: Media Used in Game Studies Publications

Publication history

Design research thesis course