Architecture After Physicality
As architecture becomes increasingly mediated through images, videos, and digital platforms, the experience of space is no longer limited to physical presence. Most audiences encounter buildings first—and often only—through screens. Eric Honghao Zhao frames this condition as media architecture: architecture designed not only for bodily inhabitation but also for visual circulation and narrative consumption. In this interview, Zhao speaks with creative technologist June Bee, a designer working on the commercial space station project Starlab at Journey. Their conversation examines how zero gravity reshapes architectural logic, how digital twins transform design processes, and how media, capital, and digital representation redefine architecture as both experience and commodity.
Eric Honghao Zhao
June Bee
Alright June, tell me about yourself. What have you been working on recently? Do you have a project you’d like to share with us?
I’m a creative technologist working across film, architecture, and software development, designing between physical and digital dimensions, pushing the boundaries of human understanding of environments and living for the current generation. I currently work at Journey, where one of my main projects is Starlab—a commercial space station developed through a joint venture between Voyager, Mitsubishi, Hilton, Airbus, Palantir, Journey, and more.
Starlab represents a shift toward commercial space travel. Lower Earth orbit, once primarily occupied by the International Space Station under NASA, is now opening to commercial ventures, with multiple companies building space stations and operating as landlords in this emerging ecosystem. What distinguishes Starlab from traditional aerospace projects is that we approach space not only as an engineering challenge, but as an experience design problem. Beyond survival, we ask what everyday life might look like in orbit: how people carry out daily chores, how they navigate rest and entertainment, and what it means to live collectively in a zero-gravity environment. These questions shape how we design the station as an experiential environment rather than a purely technical structure keeping people alive.
Most people will never physically enter a space station, yet they will experience it through images and videos online. I describe this condition as media architecture: architecture designed not only for bodily experience, but also for images and visual circulation. In projects like Starlab, where most audiences encounter the space through media, how does zero gravity change the logic of architectural design?
Designing in zero gravity fundamentally reshapes how we think about space. On Earth, we assume a hierarchy between floor, wall, and ceiling. In space, that hierar chy disappears. Every surface becomes potentially functional, and people can occupy space from multiple orientations. Spatial organization is no longer centered on a single upright perspective. Circulation, privacy, and everyday activities must be rethought, because movement depends on being able to reach and push off surfaces. This constrains scale and openness in unexpected ways. Architecture in zero gravity becomes less about monumental form and more about choreographing bodily interaction within a fully three-dimensional field.
At the same time, these environments are largely encountered through mediated representations. Most audiences experience space stations through renderings, videos, and press images rather than direct bodily presence. Designing space today therefore also means designing how it will be seen, narrated, and circulated across platforms with the intent of delivering observed sensory input through visual and sound.
Another concept often discussed in contemporary design is the digital twin. How do digital twins function in the design process of projects like Starlab? And how would you distinguish them from traditional renderings?
Digital twins operate as real-time, interactive replicas of environments that are either physical or soon-to-become physical. Unlike traditional drawings or static renderings, they allow designers to simulate circulation patterns, environmental conditions, and user behavior, and to update models as new data emerges. They are tools for coordination between engineers and designers, but also platforms through which users and stakeholders can engage with a project. Architecture becomes an evolving system rather than a finished object, shaped by feedback loops between the digital and the physical.
A rendering communicates an idea visually, but it is fixed and non-interactive. A digital twin, by contrast, must be both real-time and interactive. It connects digital models to live data streams, allowing changes in one realm to affect the other. In this sense, the digital environment is no longer merely representational; it becomes operational, participating in how architecture functions rather than only how it appears. The space itself becomes its own intellectual being consciously living with humans.
In projects like Starlab or large-scale visions such as NEOM’s The Line, design processes are constantly exposed to media coverage and public discussion. Do you think contemporary architecture has entered a kind of “Truman Show” condition, where design unfolds under continuous observation? How does this media exposure shape the way architects and designers work?
Design today rarely happens behind closed doors. Largescale projects, especially those with strong media appeal, are often developed under public view, accompanied by press releases, renderings, and speculative narratives. In this sense, the design process itself becomes a mediated performance. Designers receive feedback not only from clients and collaborators, but also from a broader public that encounters the project through media representations. It does feel like a large seminar of collective iteration.
This exposure can be productive, because it introduces diverse perspectives and forces designers to articulate the social meaning of their work more clearly. At the same time, it can also distort priorities. Public attention often gravitates toward spectacle, novelty, and easily consumable images, which may push design toward visual impact rather than long-term usability or ethical considerations. Designers are therefore negotiating between professional judgment, public imagination, and media logic. Architecture is no longer only built for use, but also staged for observation, debate, and evolution.
If architecture is increasingly encountered through digital representations, do you think a rendering can be considered architecture? And how does this relate to the way digital mediation and capital shape human experience today?
If we define architecture purely as physical material, then a rendering is not architecture. But if we understand architecture as “experience,” representation becomes part of architecture. There are three layers of it that compose it into an experience—a rendering exists as a digital artifact, produces the activity of viewing, and generates emotional and cognitive responses. These layers together form a spatial experience, even if the space does not yet exist physically. Representation participates in architecture by shaping how people imagine, desire, and relate to space in advance of construction.
Today, we increasingly consume narratives and images before encountering physical objects. Digital platforms sell lifestyles, aspirations, and futures long before any material experience occurs. Architecture becomes part of this economy of imagination: people buy into the idea of a space through images and stories, sometimes without ever entering the space itself. The commodity is no longer only the building, but the narrative attached to it. At the same time, physical experience still matters—touch, materiality, and bodily presence cannot be fully replaced. What has changed is that digital mediation shapes expectations in advance, intensifying the influence of media and capital on how architecture is perceived and valued. It interweaves the personal and collective aspects of what creating and experiencing life is like in this multidimensional world now. Architecture’s main service now has become to provide a vessel for evolution, exercise the capacity of growth with various users’ needs, and nurture multi-culture experiences.