Building Blocks: We Are Stardust

<p dir="ltr">Research Background </p><p dir="ltr">This research sits within the field of architectural design and immersive media, intersecting with speculative world-building, participatory design, and emerging AI workflows. It responds to contemporary discourse on immersive environments and digital ecologies in design practice (e.g. Marcos Novak’s transarchitectures, Sandra Manninger’s synthetic natures, and Liam Young’s speculative urbanism). The project engages with real-time design methodologies explored in gaming platforms (Unreal Engine, Unity) and AI-generated spatial assets (e.g. NERF, text-to-3D), extending the work of scholars such as Ed Keller on post-digital architecture and Ruairi Glynn’s interactive systems. There is a growing need to integrate environmental imagination, collaborative authorship, and spatial storytelling in architectural pedagogy and creative public engagement—particularly with young audiences. </p><p dir="ltr">Research Contribution </p><p dir="ltr">We Are Stardust is a design-led workshop for children aged 8–12, collaboratively developed by the Immersive Futures Lab (Vei Tan and Patrick Macasaet). It speculates on future ecologies by enabling participants to generate creatures and habitats using AI tools, which are then situated in an explorable real-time gaming world constructed from NERF scans of the MPavilion site. The research explores hybrid workflows between AI, gaming, and participatory design, testing a novel method for engaging the public in environmental futures through co-creation and spatial storytelling. My role involved conceptualisation, environmental design, workshop development, and facilitation. </p><p dir="ltr">Research Significance </p><p dir="ltr">This work was selected for the MPavilion 2025 program, curated by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation. It extends a research lineage developed through partnerships with ACMI, Federation Square, and Melbourne Recital Centre. It advances architectural knowledge through public pedagogy, creative AI applications, and immersive site-specific design. It demonstrates a novel mode of architectural engagement and public research translation.</p>