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Realtime Environment Artist & Worldbuilding Designer
Moving between worldbuilding, image-making and spatial design, she creates authored worlds where memory, fiction and lived space begin to overlap. Her projects are driven by a strong interest in spatial emotion, visual storytelling, and the construction of environments that feel both intimate and otherworldly.
shumingzhou08@gmail.com
LinkedIn | Shuming Zhou
My work explores how personal memory, fragmented recollection, and the search for belonging can be translated into emotional landscapes, using image, sound, character, and digital environments to make inner experience visible and shareable.
Awards
Victorian Premier's Design Awards | Australia
Digital Design – Finalist
2025
Architizer A+Awards | USA
Architectural Visionary of the Year – Special Mention
2025
Edge Architecture Festival Budapest | Hungary
Winner, TOPIA / Virtual Insanity
2025
Fondation Jacques Rougerie | France
Focus Prize, Architecture and Innovation for Space
2022
Exhibitions
Melbourne Design Week | Melbourne, Australia
Future Naarm: First Light
2025
House Show Exhibition, Robin Boyd Foundation | Melbourne, Australia
Future Naarm: First Light
2025
Wild Hope, Now or Never Festival | Melbourne, Australia
Future Naarm: First Light
2023
+MODEL Barcelona Architectures Festival | Barcelona, Spain
Extreme Imaginings: Fractal Cities
2023
Federation Square Experience Lab Showcase | Melbourne, Australia
Future Naarm: Mists and Shadows
2023
Experience
Independent Practice
Aug 2025 – Present
3D Environment Artist & Worldbuilding Designer
Developing Fry the Moon, an original short film and worldbuilding project spanning five real-time environments, leading 3D production across environment design, asset integration, set dressing, materials, lighting, look development and cinematic output. Also working across collaborative filmmaking and an ongoing interior short-film series.
Superscale / RMIT Immersive Futures Lab
Nov 2022 – Aug 2023
Real-Time Environment Artist
Created real-time environments for A New Kind of Wonder and Future Naarm: First Light, translating worldbuilding concepts into spatial composition, materials, lighting, atmosphere and environmental storytelling. Integrated team-built architecture, interactive systems and animated assets into Unreal Engine environments through testing and delivery.
Tectonic Formation Lab, RMIT University
Apr 2023 – Jun 2023
Filmmaker & Photographer
Filmed and photographed Roland Snooks’ Glass Facade Fragment, following its recycled-glass 3D-printing process through to the completed glass-and-metal sculpture. The resulting visual documentation accompanied the project across Melbourne Design Week, Australian Manufacturing Week and the Venice Biennale.
RMIT University
Jul 2022 – Oct 2022
Research Assistant
Supported resin and PLA 3D printing and material testing for organic architectural research projects. Produced an Unreal Engine 5 animation for the Coral studio presentation at the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture.
Independent Practice
Apr 2022 – Jun 2022
3D Artist
Modelled and textured a digital aircraft asset in Blender, recreating a large-scale physical installation for integration into Urban Explorer, a four-person Unreal Engine game project.
IAPA Design
Nov 2018 – Feb 2019
Architectural Design Intern
Contributed to early-stage design development for a large-scale resort project in Guangzhou, producing SketchUp models for spatial studies and concept exploration; developed an observatory proposal within the wider scheme.
Education
The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL | London, UK
MArch Architecture (Part II)
Sep 2023 – Jul 2025
RMIT University | Melbourne, Australia
Bachelor of Architectural Design
Mar 2019 – Nov 2021