Aida Navarro Redón
now, Mediterranean sea


Aida is an architect, having graduated with honours from the School of Architecture of Valencia (ETSAV) in 2012. She earned her Ph.D. in Architecture, awarded Summa Cum Laude, from the School of Architecture of Madrid in 2020 with research about virtual spaces, using video games as a case study. Additionally, she holds a Master of Research (M.Res) in Architecture from the School of Architecture of Madrid (ETSAM, 2014) and a Master in Computer Sciences for Video Games from Complutense University (UCM, 2019).

Currently, she holds a lecturing position at Universidad Europea (UE), teaching video games degree and master courses. Simultaneously, she develops her ideas about the concept of play, virtual space & architecture as a virtual space developer & researcher.

Her professional journey encompasses two interconnected paths. On one hand, she has contributed to architectural practices such as RCR Arquitectes, IDOM-ACXT, and Foster & Partners. She has also collaborated with various video game studios, including C77 Entertainment, the Bafta-winner Herobeat Studios, and Calathea Game Studio. Notably, her work on Inner Ashes, a game addressing Alzheimer’s disease, earned a PlayStation Talents Award. Also, as a Ggme & level designer she joined Activision-Microsoft, working with the Maps Team at Digital Legends on Call of Duty. 

For over two years, she was part of the studio of Hispanic-American artist, Daniel Canogar, where she engaged in artistic research around virtuality. In these projects she was involved in collaborations with institutions such as the Prado Museum, the Dubai Expo 2020, Art Basel, ARCO, and the Cancer Research Centre in Spain.

On the other hand, she has cultivated her academic profile by teaching undergraduate and graduate courses at the School of Architecture of Madrid (ETSAM). For three years, she led the Virtual Project Masters Course in Architectural Communication (MACA), implementing educational innovation projects like SAPIENS, a Spatial Augmented Project for the Innovation of Environments (2018/2019). As a visiting professor, she has contributed to Zaragoza University, the School of Architecture of Valencia, UDIT, and Antonio Nebrija University. Her work has been showcased at prominent venues, including the Venice Biennale (2018), TEDx Talks (2016), Woman in Games (2021), Etopia Centre for Arts & Technology (2022), CentroCentro Madrid (2024) and CENART in Mexico (2022). Additionally, she conducted a short visiting research stint at the Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL, London) in 2018. 

 In 2019, she was the recipient of a creation grant from the Ministry of Agenda 2030 in Spain for the development of a project exploring abandoned water parks as archaeology of the future within the context of the climate crisis and leisure. Fin de Temporada - the End of Season - is now a finalist for the FAD Awards and Arquia Proxima Prize.


SELECTED TALKS  
  • ‘Archeology of the Future in Level Design’ (15/06/2023) at Madrid Games Show at Matadero Madrid, Spain
  • ‘Video Games & ADHD’ (14/12/2023) in conferences about active education at Fundación Educación Activa & Fundación Telefónica, Madrid, Spain  
  • ‘Future Paths for Virtual Education: Animation & Video Games’ (15/04/2023) Discussion panel in Universidad Europea (UE), Madrid, Spain  
  • ‘How to Design Levels Without Coding’ (10/08/2023) for Women in Games Mexico. DF. Mexico 
  • ‘Unexpected Perspective in Video Games’ (24/05/2021) master class in Degree in Architecture, Universidad Antonio de Nebrija, Madrid, Spain  
  • ‘Architectural Space as Playspace’ (14/04/2016) master class in Degree in Interior Design. UDIT, Madrid, Spain 
  • ‘Final Master Thesis VS. Ph.D. Thesis. An Approximation’ (3/10/2016) during Inaugural Conference Week for  MPAA 8. DPA. . ETSAM. Madrid, Spain
  • ‘Public Space is a Gameboard.’ (26/02/2016) in TEDxUPValencia. Valencia. Spain 
  • ‘Public space is a gameboard: the case of Congress building’ (15/04/2015). In 52th International Congress of Young Philosophy. Zaragoza. Spain  

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS  
  • ‘Visible City, City of Play’ Exhibition. Part of the Ph.D. Research. Spring-Summer 2014. CentroCentro Cibeles, Madrid, Spain
  • ‘Video Games: Two Sides of the Screen’ Exhibition. Part of the Ph.D. Researh. Autumn 2022. CENART, Mexico DF, Mexico  
  • ‘CTRL ALT PLAY’ Exhibition. Part of the Ph.D. Researh. Spring 2022. ETOPIA Art & Culture Center, Zaragoza, Aragón, Spain 
  • ‘B-E-C-O-M-I-N-G’ Exhibition. Spanish Pavilion. Part of the Master Thesis: Public Space is a Gameboard. Summer 2018. Venice Biennale of Architecture, Venice, Italy

SAY HI

022 FIN DE TEMPORADA / THE END OF SEASON

A project commissioned and financed by the Spanish Ministry of the 2030 Agenda for the research into how leisure behaviour is changing through the cataloguing of abandoned leisure spaces. This project intertwines some concepts like the transition between material and virtual (leisure in this case), how this transition affects world resources, as well as envisages the archaeology of the future, especially through the study of contemporary ruins, non-building ideas or dystopian projects from contemporary architecture.


Read more2019-ongoing
research
visual film
architecture
play - game

021 PIXELS & WALLS

Visual article for the Fundación ARQUIA Blog - the Spanish Bank of Architects - during its new phase curated by Bartlebooth.
 

Watch here
2024
article
architecture 
video games


020 CALL OF DUTY: WARZONE MOBILE
 
Working for Activision-Microsoft, in the Digital Legends Maps team as a level designer. 
 · Working in large scale landscapes & cities.  
 · Consulting on architectural and structural coherence.  
 · Automation of processes with Python inside the maps. Special focus on culling systems.  
 · Bugfixing in coordination with the studios in Los Angeles, Shanghai & Montreal.  
 · Research, updating and development of new tools within the game engine. 
 

Read more
2022-2024
professional
video games


019 INSTANT UTOPIAS

Article for Arquitectura Viva  journal about the relationship between videogames and architecture. 
 


Read here2023
article
architecture
video games

018 FRAY

Working for the Bafta winner, Herobeat Studios, as a level designer. Developing games with social and environmental impact, like Fray, a transmedia puzzle-music game about the real-life history between two brothers growing up on the outskirts of an American city amidst poverty and drugs.


Read more 2021-2022
professional
video games

017 COMBAT CHAMPIONS

Working as a level designer with C77 Entertainment, a team based in Seattle formed by veterans from Microsoft. Developing some maps for a multiplayer first-person shooter game called Combat Champions. It is now available for wishlisting on Steam.    


 Read more 2021
professional
video games




016 UNEXPECTED PERSPECTIVE

In 1979, Atari launched the videogame Adventure, considered a pioneer in RPGs (role-playing games). Atari thus launched its own system of representation called three-quarter perspective, and which would subsequently be used by all large videogame companies. Three-quarter perspective was, in reality, what was termed ‘Egyptian perspective’ or Hejduk perspective, which consists of placing plan and elevation simultaneously in a single drawing.

 
Read here2021

article
architecture
video games




015 POKEMON GO: THE EXPERIENCE OF AUGMENTED SPACE

The first Pokémon video game was published in 1996. 20 years later Pokémon Go was released, becoming a huge success and a social phenomenon, because - thanks to augmented reality - Pokémon Go modified the use of urban space in an unprecedented way. . This work analyses how Pokémon could make the leap from a Japanese role-playing game to a mobile application with more than 11 million users daily, and how that change is based on the importance that Pokémon gives to space and the interaction with it.  


Read here 2021
article
architecture
video games




014 GAMESPACE | PLAYSPACE

Ph.D. Research focused on the relationship between virtual and material space, through the case study of video games. The work is divided into two parts: from architecture to video games and from video games to architecture, built upon an extensive analysis developing an archive comprising more than 100 devices – a system to access these layers of virtuality - and 700 games in relation to the spatial proposals they do. Video games are used as the mainstream form of virtual environments.   



Read the complete research2020
Research
architecture
video games




013 DANIEL CANOGAR STUDIO

Working at Daniel Canogar Studio on a series of projects that rethought the idea of the screen by breaking it up, and turning it into a wall or a large-scale element. Work focused on giving technical feasibility to the proposals and artistic consistency in design elements.   


Read more
2019-2021
professional
architecture
virtual space




012 S.A.P.I.E.N.S

Spatial Augmented Project for the Innovation of EnvironmentS. 

Educational Innovation Project (P.I.E.) developed at the School of Architecture of Madrid (UPM) for the Master Programme in Architectural Communication (MACA), based on augmented reality around the case study of Nuevos Ministerios. 



Read more2018
teaching
professional
virtual space
architecture



011 CITIES AND VIDEO GAMES

'Cities and Videogames, Towards an Interactive Urbanism', a documentary produced by COTEC exclusively for #Imperdible_03, directed by #Los100deCotec expert, Santiago Bustamante. The documentary addresses the relationship between material and virtual space from different perspectives, such as architecture, videogame development or even art theory. It features six interviews conducted in three cities: Athens, Los Angeles and Madrid.
 


 See the complete documentary 2018
architecture
video games



010 INNER ASHES

Working as a game and level designer with some colleagues in the development of Inner Ashes, a video game about Alzheimer’s disease. Playstation Spain rewarded the idea with the Social Commitment Award which allowed it to be fully developed and published. The game has also won several awards in other competitions. Work went from the Inner Ashes ideation - based on a novel by Umberto Eco - to the creation of the maps and the first three levels of the game. 



Read more
2018
professional
video games



009 LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA

The work on public space, understood as a game board, was exhibited at the Spanish Pavilion of the Venice Biennale 2018 and in its catalogue. 


Read more

2018
exhibition
architecture
play - game  



008 DOMESTIC BOUNDARIES

The relationship between home and city has always been one of the less obvious, but more significant factors, that can promote and allow general social change. In the contemporary era, changes in family structure, work organisation, technology, gender and communication are being reflected in a new urban revolution that blends the domestic space with the cityscape. The urban structure that has accompanied us in the last century is undergoing a strong shock to its foundations towards a radical change in its nature, generating new relationships between people and city.    

Read here2018
book chapter
architecture
video games




007 STOYRIES


‘For every man there is an image whose contemplation makes him forget the whole world. How many will not find it in an old box of toys?’

Walter Benjamin

Stoyries was an experimental project which works as a game. The project studies the movement and the effect of playful activators or triggers on the urban space and the people who interact in it.


Read more   2015-2018
volunteering
architecture
play - game



006 PUBLIC SPACE IS A GAMEBOARD

Research focused on the concept of the game, understood not only as a mere distraction, but also as a possibility to modify the use of collective space in the city. The Amsterdam playgrounds by Aldo van Eyck and the Fun Palace by Cedric Price were two main references. The research was based on a case study in the Congress of Deputies in Madrid; an urban area especially engineered by the political situation and the government. Different playful approaches were deployed in this area and their effects studied.


Read more
2013-2014
academic
architecture
play - game




005 #GATHERTHEPAVEMENT

Part of #HACERPLAZA, a four-month timeline to produce a prototype that helps test a working hypothesis and open up new research tracks. In order to accomplish this, a multidisciplinary team of anthropologists, historians, journalists, architects, and political and social scientists have been working alongside citizens of Barrio de Las Letras in Madrid at the Medialab-Prado since May 2014.   
 


Read more

2014
academic
architecture
play - game




004 #115 DIAS

Taught architectural projects as a subject for final year architecture degree students in the Projects Department at the School of Architecture of Madrid. With the rest of the team, two publications were developed:  

• Spring 2014: Cultura Pop - Projects subject: Public buildings in Battersea Area, London. Gallegos-Aranguren Unit, 4th & 5th courses.
• Autumn 2013: [IN-EX] MAD - Projects subject: Dwelling intervention in ‘El Pilar’ neighbourhood, Madrid. Gallegos-Aranguren Unit, 4th & 5th courses.

Go to #115 website
2013-2014
professional
teaching



003 RCR ARQUITECTES


Worked as an intern architect in the Pritzer prize-winning studio RCR Arquitectes, participating in a multitude of projects, initially on more technical tasks, mainly construction details, and later working on complete projects from the beginning stage.  The work was reviewed in multiple publications such as AV and El Croquis.
 


Go to RCR Arquitectes2012-2013
professional
architecture



002 A PLACE FOR MEDITATION IN MALMO CEMENTERY


The first competition entered after graduation earned first prize! It was an intervention at the Malmo Cemetery, a place where the presence of Sigmund Lewerentz’s brick kiosk plays an important role. The project is clearly influenced by the work at RCR Arquitectes, and was mostly hand drawn and conceived as a project extensively made of brick in B/W.
   

See the complete project

Read more2013
competicion
architecture



001 THE THIRD ELEMENT

Space, activity and time. An intervention at Valencia’s Port. With honours  

The final degree project was the first one of significant length – over six months. The proposal reconfigured the port of Valencia in order to connect it to the city by removing wasteful buildings and structures and reusing their material to rebuild others. It laid the foundations for later architecture, with a specific focus on the re-use of abandoned buildings and their reconversion.



2012
academic
architecture