Space Popular is an architecture and media studio that explores the future of spatial experience through research, design, and artworks. The studio works with virtual reality, film, exhibitions, and writing, as well as buildings and objects, and is directed by architects Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, both alumni of the Architectural Association in London (2011). They founded the practice in Bangkok (2013) and have been based in London and Spain since 2016. The studio has completed projects across Asia and Europe, as well as virtual architecture for the immersive internet (aka. the metaverse).
Clients, collaborators, and commissioners include national institutions such as MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Art, Rome, Italy; The Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design –ArkDes, Stockholm, Sweden; Royal Institute of British Architects, London, UK; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea; MEET digital culture Center in Milan, Italy; as well as independent galleries such as MAGAZIN, Vienna, Austria; and Sto Werkstatt, London, UK.
Lesmes and Hellberg both have extensive academic experience having taught architectural design studio since 2011, first at INDA, Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok from 2021 to 2016, at the Architectural Association in London from 2016 to 2021, at Daniels, Faculty of Architecture, University of Toronto from 2020 to 2022, and currently at UCLA Architecture and Urban Design. Their current MArch design and research studio investigates visions for civic architecture in the immersive internet.
