Narrative Environment Design in Architecture and Interior Design for Video Games

The process of creating narrative environments combines art, architecture, design, and storytelling. You will start with research into the industry, urban planning, and landscapes, which you will combine with game styles and the specific needs of the sector. You will then work on technique through drawing, painting, and maps, the foundation of the whole training process.

Next, you will develop a style and adapt it to a brief, imitating the processes used by the industry. The course culminates in the delivery of a design dossier that shows the work process, including discarded elements, all the way to the final environment.

Classes combine guided practical sessions, where you will get familiar with the work processes, technique, and research needed to design an environment, and workshop classes, where you will strengthen your technique through classical drawing, life drawing, and classical digital painting.

Start of the next intake: November 13, 2026. This specialization course consists of 40 hours of in-person training at our 22@ campus, split across two weekly sessions: Friday afternoons (4:00 pm to 8:00 pm) and Saturday mornings (10:00 am to 2:00 pm).

1. INTRODUCTION TO THE INDUSTRY

• The concepts of the video game industry, its needs, and its workflow. The focus is on the design side and on the particularities of the different game styles and what they require when designing an environment.

2. FUNDAMENTALS OF ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

• The fundamentals of architectural design, taught by professionals. Analysis of real cases to understand how design shapes cities (urban planning), buildings (architecture), and their interior spaces (interior design).

3. CONCEPTUALIZATION

• Analysis of different games and their graphic styles to begin developing the idea for an environment from a brief set by the industry.

4. TECHNIQUE

• The artistic process and technical requirements for developing a suitable style, using the human figure and architectural spaces as the foundation for everything. Life drawing and digital painting, imitating artistic processes until you develop your own style.

5. DESIGN CONCEPTS

• Environment creation techniques, from the conceptual and psychological side to the development needed to explore the work processes, technique, and final style each creation requires.

6. DOSSIER CREATION

• How to lay out and present a professional dossier for a submission before a panel, showing the process followed, the research, the painting, the style, and the preliminary sketches alongside the final environment.

*The study plan is subject to change.