Bartlett Research Conversations: Eric Wong

The Building of Imaginary Worlds in Environments of the Virtual: Architect as World-Builder

Speaker: Eric Wong
Supervisors: Professor Penelope Haralambidou and Dr Luke Pearson
Guest panellist: Professor Nat Chard, The Bartlett School of Architecture 

Abstract

As physical, analogue design and building practices progress into alternative mediums of the virtual, the architect's role in more contemporary worlds of space-making becomes widely contested. From drawing to film, to the digital and immersive, new-media landscapes reshape how architecture and our built environment are conceived, constructed, and experienced. Eric Wong’s interdisciplinary explorations as an architect world-building for Japanese animation auteur, Director Mamoru Hosoda, questions the Western-centric focus of architectural discourse and practice and reassesses the contemporary meanings and practices of the virtual. Embedded in methods of drawing, writing, interviews, and archival research, an autoethnographic inquiry of practice-based reflections, real-time explorations, and design-based investigations establishes critical tools for the contemporary architect to assume the role of a world-builder. At the forefront of this research, the world-building architect is actively recognised as a valuable discipline in shaping expansive, inclusive, and inspiring contributions to architectural imaginaries, and built environments of the virtual.

About The Bartlett Research Conversations

The Bartlett School of Architecture’s Research Conversations seminars comprise work-in-progress and upgrade presentations by students undertaking the Architectural Design MPhil/PhD and Architectural and Urban History and Theory MPhil/PhD. All current UCL staff and students are welcome to attend.

Held regularly throughout the academic year, the seminars are attended by the Programme Directors, Professor Sophia Psarra and Dr Nina Vollenbröker; PhD Coordinators, Dr Stamatis Zografos and Dr Stelios Giamarelos; and other PhD supervisors.

Image: Entry drawing to the architect as world-builder design project: In memory of Professor Jonathan Hill, 1958-2022, “to all the doors and opportunities Jonathan has opened to us all in his orbit”, 2022 (drawing by Eric Wong)