Projects: Interspace Lecture Series

Each year since 2025, our lab is hosting a two‑part Unity and C# course in collaboration with Toyota and Miyake Laboratory at the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo. Game Engines are a powerful tool in architectural research, and the course is designed to give students a practical foundation they can build on.

The first half follows a Japanese circle format, it is led by students using designated texts, it is discussion‑driven and collaborative. It has merits, but with the wealth of online resources, I'm not sure it's the optimum way to learn programming. With the proliferation of generative AI, maybe this style, with additional responsibility towards classmates for shared learning, this is a good method.

The second half, which I lead from October to December, shifts into advanced applications of game engines for architecture. Each week focuses on a different topic and includes a small hands‑on project to help students build a working technical base.

Topics covered in the advanced section include:

• Reintroduction to Game Engines + Part 1 review

• Version Control Systems

• Debugging + Design Patterns

• Urban Digital Twins + PLATEAU

• PLATEAU + Real-time Data Integration

• Agent‑Based Simulation in PLATEAU

• AI Tools to Code / Materials + Shaders

• Data‑Driven Programming

• AI Integration with Unity projects

• Designing + Building for XR

• Motion Capture + Common Ground

• Other Game Engines + Next Steps

The goal is simple: give architecture master’s students a broad, modern toolkit so they can bring game‑engine thinking into their own research and future projects. The students will finish with a suite of projects they have created that utilise AI, Plateau, XR etc to build on.

A large challenge for me was bilingual delivery. There is a spectrum of English to Japanese speaking students, so I created all materials in both languages, speaking in English, with auto translated to Japanese  subtitles over slides in Japanese. Students with weaker Japanese could follow the provided English materials.