Low Res City – Realised Augmentity, Y5. Tutors: Prof. Laura Allen and Prof. Mark Smout. In Minecraft, a free-form MMORPG, an expandable set of resources is used to shape the world around the player – voxel by voxel. Like pre-renaissance builders, the Minecraft players plan and build in first-view perspective directly on site. They don't need a god's-view plan created by an 'artist-architect' – a fairly modern concept emerging with the 15th century rinascimento (Woods, 1999, 5). Brought back to reality, a physical version of the game challenges the role of the architect: a constantly changing, spatial animation shows the builder where to put the physical blocks, making classic plans superfluous. The app relates the shown projection to the tracker in the back of the room, acting as first-view construction manual.
