Ziyi Zhang

Video Game design is also an invisible architecture in a way. —Shuiguchi Tetsuya, designer of Rez: Infinite (2014, interview)

Because of the existence of the game world, our experience in building the world has also changed. That is to say, once we establish a new cognitive framework in the surrounding world of the game character, this cognitive framework will not only stay in the game world, but will affect our relationship with the real world. —Lan Jiang (2016, 26) In the contemporary era, we live in a multidimensional space, both physical and virtual. While the physical world affects people’s senses, the virtual world also affects people’s relationship with the world. (2016, 11) Architecture shapes the way we inhabitants live. Negative space for travels and positive space for stays. Correspondingly, game design shapes that part of the invisible things, and influences the modern spiritual world and way of thinking. Kojima Hideo introduced his game like this: “After playing dozens of hours in Death Stranding, you will eventually return to reality. In the game you can learn a lot of things in reality and can give them some reason to face social contact in reality. I think Death Stranding is a game suitable for anyone to play. “(2019, interview)

Numerous examples show that the virtual world in the game can interact with the real world, such as Pokémon Go, which combines virtuality and reality, and Assassin’s Creed, which provided the data to rebuild the Notre Dame de Paris. Increasingly people are beginning to pay attention to the impact of games on our real world.

This project will use several case studies and practical projects to answer that what kind of appearance will the architecture derived from the history of material show after entering the pure digital space? And how will the virtual game world affect people’s understanding of the real world, in other words, how will it guide people to design the world around?