This talk will critically present the work of the emerging RMIT Architecture Immersive Futures Lab that explores the role of gaming environments, technologies and allied immersive media in spatializing, engaging, teaching, designing and constructing speculative futures through the lens of the architecture discipline. It will discuss, through projects developed in teaching and research, how speculative virtual gaming environments can serve as critical and imaginative provocations to contemporary planetary concerns such as ecological crises. Immersive, open-world experiences provide opportunities for audiences to reflect on the impacts of environmental change while envisioning speculative futures for our cultural and built environments.

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These speculative environments utilize game engine technology to design and construct layered and interactive worlds that challenge traditional architectural representation. They operate as experimental spaces, where participants can engage with ecological narratives, cultural histories, and imaginative futures. By navigating these virtual landscapes, users may encounter hybridized ecosystems and provocative scenarios that challenge binary conditions—natural versus artificial, virtual versus real—and encourage reflection on the dynamic relationship of human and non-human systems.

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Grounded in themes of ecology, climate crisis, and radical imagination, these speculative environments investigate the relationship between disappearing landscapes, the residues of their transformation, and the imaginative futures we might construct in response through architecture and cities. How can we preserve and reinterpret remnants, histories and stories to envision hopeful trajectories? Through an interdisciplinary approach, these speculative worlds integrate ecological data, cultural storytelling, technological simulations, and imaginative design. These platforms encourage dialogue, foster collaboration, and provoke discourse on the socio-political and ecological questions surrounding contemporary concerns.

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The presentation will examine how virtual environments can redefine architectural and creative practice in the context of the New Media Age, moving beyond static representation to embrace hybridized and interactive forms of communication. These dynamic worlds challenge conventions of drawing, representation, and audience engagement, proposing new methods for exploring complex systems and narratives.

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This presentation invites participants to reflect on the fragility of our landscapes, the resilience of our cultures, and the transformative potential of critical imaginings. It positions speculative virtual gaming environments as vibrant, immersive propositions—not distant utopias or dystopias, but critical and hopeful visions that inspire action. By navigating these worlds, audiences are encouraged to engage in dialogue, discover new constellations of ideas, and imagine futures where creativity meets the challenges of our ecological and cultural crises.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Vei Tan is co-founder of the RMIT Architecture Immersive Futures Lab that explores the potentials of gaming technologies and immersive media for architectural design. The lab's interdisciplinary approach explores gaming environments and technologies to develop new immersive and real-time design processes, visualisations, applications and pedagogies. It posits that understanding possible “now, near, and future” visions and realities, require innovative hybrid methods for making, curating, engaging, and imagining our cultural and built environments. The lab has exhibited projects at various international events such as Melbourne Design Week (2021), Venice Architecture Biennale (2021), Barcelona Architectures Festival (2023) and more. It has worked with various cultural and education institutions such as Melbourne Recital Centre, Federation Square, ACMI, MPavilion, Jacques Rougerie Foundation and more. The lab is part of the RMIT School of Architecture and Urban Design where she is an industry staff member and design studio leader.

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Vei Tan is also the co-founder of Superscale, a research-led and speculative multidimensional creative practice that amplifies our architectural training to permeate disciplinary boundaries - unearthing new realities, possibilities, techniques and imaginings for architectural speculation, pedagogy and design.

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