Learning from Videogames Level Design: An Educational Point of View for Architecture

There are two fundamental aspects that characterize the profession of an architect: design and construction. Usually in schools of architecture, inside the design laboratories, students never participate in the construction phase. It would be very educational to follow a project from the initial concept to the final result, but this is often not possible due to lack of analysis, funding and equipment. In this paper we propose to look at level design for the creation of 3D worlds of videogames as a method of design education. This could be an interesting topic of study for a university course in a faculty of architecture through the development of a methodology and the complete process from a basic concept to a finished product, complete, playable, and usable. Level design is one of the topics closest to architecture, both in design methodology and arguments to be developed, like space and activities taking place inside it. We believe that making a level could represent an important technical and creative exercise for students because they can carry out and develop some themes more in depth and in a more innovative way than with traditional courses.