Game Designer
Founder
Researcher
Growing up I was obsessed with LEGO, but I kept running out of bricks. I then discovered Minecraft and could keep building without limits.
In 2012 I set up BlockWorks, a company that designs and creates custom experiences inside Minecraft. BlockWorks has evolved from a small team of Minecraft content creators to one of the leading creators in the metaverse space. I have led the development of experiences which have been downloaded over 100 million times, and viewed by billions on YouTube and elsewhere.
Since 2020 I have Chaired The Block by Block Foundation, a non-profit partnership between Microsoft and the UN which uses videogames to democratise the process of urban design. The Foundation has contributed over $30 million towards the UN SDGs, improving the lives of over 2.75 million people in 55 countries.
Having completed a BA in architecture and MA in inter-disciplinary urban design, I now lecture at UCL’s Bartlett School of Architecture on videogame urbanism - the intersection of architecture and gaming technologies.
I passionately believe that videogames can make the world a better place through education, play and empowerment, and that the virtual environments we are increasingly spending our time in have a social and cultural value that we are only beginning to understand.
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2023 ADC Germany 1 x Gold, 1 x Silver, 2 x Bronze
2023 Peabody Award Winner
2023 Clios 3 x Silver, 1 x Bronze
2022 Clios 1 x Silver
2022 Webby Awards Winner for Sustainability & Environment in Advertising
2022 Cannes Lions 1 x Silver, 1 x Bronze
2022 LIA Awards 2 x Gold, 4 x Silver
2021 Cannes Lions 3 x Gold, 4 x Silver, 2 x Bronze, Shortlist Titanium
2021 D&AD 2 x Yellow Pencil, 1 x Graphite Pencil, 5 x Wood Pencil
2021 The One Show 1 x Sustainable Development Pencil, 3 x Gold Pencil, 4 x Silver Pencil, 2 x Bronze Pencil
2021 ADC 100th Annual Awards 1 x Black Cube (Best in Show), 1 x Grand Prix (Best of Discipline), 1 x Designism Cube, 4 x Gold
2021 ADC Germany 1 x Grand Prix (Best in Show), 5 x Gold, 6 x Silver, 4 x Bronze
2021 NY Festival 1 x Gold, 3 x Silver, 2 x Bronze
2021 LIA Awards 1 x Gold, 5 x Silver, 2 x Bronze
2021 Lovie Awards 3 x Gold, 3 x People’s Winner
2021 Webby Awards Winner
2021 Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award Winner
2020 Beazley Designs of the Year Nominated
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2025 Games for Change Festival, New York Censorship in Virtual Worlds
2025 London Festival of Architecture Beyond Scale: Designing in Hybrid Realms
2025 The University of Cambridge, Martin Centre Lecture Why Architects Should Take Games Seriously
2024 Museum of Design, Atlanta Design Justice: Reimagining Community through Videogames
2024 Sustainable Cities in Action, Dubai Co-Designing Sustainable Cities
2023 Public Space Biennale, Rome Proximity and Spaces of Education
2023 NYU, New York Gaming & Virtual Worlds
2023 MIT Media Lab, Bio Summit Conference A Digital Toolkit for Resistance
2022 eCommemoration Convention, Hamburg Gaming the Past and Rules of Remembrance
2022 The World Urban Forum, Katowice Technology and Innovation in Reaching our Future Cities
2022 Fifteen Seconds Festival, Graz Building a Better World Through the Power of Play
2021 Marmara Urban Forum, Istanbul Discovering Cities Through Serious Games
2021 UCL, London Minecraft, Architecture & Virtual Space
2021 University of Oslo Digital Heritage & Minecraft
2018 The British Library, London Crafting History
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2022 Minecraft and Playful Public Participation in Urban Design Urban Planning, Volume 7, Issue 2
2018 Democracy, Video Games and Urban Design, in The Architectonics of Game Spaces Transcript Verlag
2016 Beautiful Minecraft No Starch Press
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2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture, Venice Participatory Urbanism
2024 Museum of Design, Atlanta Level Up: Pixels, Play & Progress
2023 The Young V&A, London Permanent Collection
2023 ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe Gameplay: The Next Level
2021 Architekturzentrum Wien, Vienna Serious Fun
2020 Design Museum, London Beazley Designs of the Year
2020 Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich The Architecture Machine: The Role of Computers in Architecture
2019 Museum of Pop Culture, Seattle Minecraft: The Exhibition
2018 The V&A, London Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt
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