Future Naarm: First Light

Future Naarm: First Light was developed through a research and ideas-led, community-engaged, layered and iterative design process grounded in speculative cartography, architectural atmospheres, and worldbuilding as a critical practice. Initiated as a self-directed research project, the process began with investigations into the hydrological, cultural, and ecological histories of Naarm (Melbourne), focusing on Country, water systems, and future climate projections. The project unfolded through three major design phases.

First, conceptual mapping and narrative development established the spatial logic of a future Naarm shaped by flood, memory, new economies, civic infrastructures, affective spatial logic and care.

Second, architectural fragments and artefacts were modelled in Rhino with terrain, atmosphere and environment sculpted in Unreal Engine 5. These components were carefully composed to form a continuous explorable environment that evokes slowness, reflection, and speculative engagement rather than directive gameplay.

The third phase focused on experience: lighting, environmental cues, sound design, and navigation mechanics were calibrated to provoke mood and encourage user-led wandering. Unlike traditional game environments, there are no maps or instructions. The interface was deliberately minimal, encouraging intuitive exploration without UI distractions.

Testing across public installations, teaching environments, and peer feedback loops informed refinements. The final design was implemented as a standalone application, optimised for desktop use and exhibition deployment. It has been presented in pedagogical and public contexts, demonstrating its functionality, stability, and professional execution. By crafting an interactive world that engages users in reflection and critical imagination, the project not only met but expanded its brief by delivering an evocative, open-ended design outcome that bridges architecture, immersive media, and cultural narratives.

It exemplifies a process of deep, interdisciplinary collaboration with high design fidelity and speculative intent.

Future Naarm: First Light extends the criteria for good design by demonstrating how digital environments can function as spatial and architectural storytelling platforms that are thoughtful, accessible, affectively rich and layered with complex ideas.

Functionally, the world invites exploration through a familiar control system - WASD navigation, mouse orientation, and shift for first-person view - ensuring accessibility for users of varying skill levels. The experience is intuitive, with no need for instructions or objectives, reducing barriers to engagement.

Aesthetically, the project is intentionally composed. The terrain and architecture draw from speculative cartographies of a future-flooded Naarm, rendered in atmospheric light, moving mist, and layered sound. The world reveals itself through environmental cues, memory fragments, and symbolic objects that blend ecological, architectural and cultural markers. Each detail aspired to evoke emotion and stimulate reflection.

User experience is holistic and considered. The world is slow, contemplative, and open-ended, encouraging deep engagement with space, time, and story. There is no failure condition, violence, or sensory overload - users are free to wander, discover, and interpret.

First Light sets a new benchmark for architectural design in immersive media. It showcases how digital tools can be used to tell place-based stories, future speculations and challenge the boundaries of architectural communication.

Developed entirely in Victoria, it highlights the potential of cross-disciplinary design practice to contribute meaningfully to public discourse, creative culture, and future thinking at both national and international levels.

Future Naarm: First Light presents a radically new application of digital architectural design, transforming traditional notions of space, representation, and interaction through the practice of “worlding.” The project repositions architectural production away from buildings or images and into immersive environments that engage cultural, ecological, and emotional dimensions of space. The innovation lies not only in its technical execution but in its conceptual structure.

This digital world treats architecture as atmosphere, memory, and ritual -  inviting the user to move through speculative futures shaped by water, light, and environmental change. Rather than responding to a conventional brief or problem, the project creates its own provocation: how might we wander through a city shaped by climate futures and cultural resurgence?

Unlike most interactive design projects, First Light has no narrative exposition or prescribed interaction. It uses sound, light, and environmental sequencing to gently orient the user. The lack of maps or instructions reframes the user experience from task-oriented to spatially intuitive, allowing for personal interpretation and temporal drift.

Technically, the use of Unreal Engine 5 to render atmospheric spatial conditions combined with architectural modelling, speculative cartography, and sonic layering produces a world that feels living and responsive. Spatial transitions and moments of pause are embedded through careful scripting and spatial calibration. This approach creates new opportunities for digital design to operate as cultural infrastructure that support engagement, dialogue, and reflection rather than consumption.

The project is user-centred not through optimisation or productivity, but through invitation and openness. It asks users to move slowly, think deeply, and imagine otherwise. As a world-first design proposition rooted in place and ethics, First Light presents a new genre of interactive architectural experience. It expands what digital design can be, who it serves, and how it can provoke meaningful connection to Country, climate, and community.

Future Naarm: First Light is a digital design project with significant cultural, educational, and architectural impact- shaping new directions in spatial practice and public engagement. It reimagines architecture not as a product, but as a medium for cultural storytelling, climate awareness, and speculative futures.

Socially, the work fosters ethical engagement with Country and future-making. By embedding Indigenous values such as temporality, care, and relationality into the design logic, the world offers a space for users to reflect on their place in larger ecological and cultural systems. The lack of extractive gameplay or colonising mechanics repositions the user as a guest or observer, not a dominator of space.

Environmentally, First Light addresses sustainability in both theme and material practice. It imagines future climate conditions - flooded terrain, new ecologies, ruin and regrowth while being entirely digital and reusable. The application generates no physical waste, can be exhibited repeatedly, and requires minimal infrastructure to install or share.

Educationally, the project is already being used as a pedagogical tool in design studios and exhibitions. It allows students, visitors, and collaborators to engage with complex environmental and cultural narratives through spatial experience, expanding the possibilities of architecture and design learning beyond static or didactic modes. Culturally and professionally, the work builds on Victoria’s leadership in design innovation.

Developed by a local interdisciplinary team, it demonstrates the value of investing in experimental, research-driven projects that contribute to public discourse and cultural futures. The impact of First Light is not just in what it shows, but in how it is used - as a platform for rethinking the role of design in the age of climate change, decolonisation, and immersive technology. It models how architecture can become a catalyst for care, imagination, and transformation.