ARCHITYPES

Mario Carpo argues in Architecture in the Age of Printing, that the advent of print technology revolutionized architecture, the printed page replaced oral tradition, allowing architectural ideas to be codified, replicated, and disseminated. This shift allowed for the emergence of typographic architecture, where buildings were conceived as texts, and texts as spatial diagrams. Architypes reactivates this historical moment through the lens of arcade game typography. Just as architects have responded to the constraints and possibilities of the printed page, our work responds to the pixel grid—a typographic system born of early digital limitations. These pixel fonts are modular, constrained, and expressive—qualities shared with architectural components.

The work is animated using techniques found in vintage software from the 1980s and 1990s. A key method employed is color cycling—a process where static pixel art is given the illusion of motion by rapidly shifting color values across a fixed palette. This technique, once used to simulate fire, water, or shimmering light in early computer graphics, is here repurposed to animate architectural glyphs. The result is an environment where letters pulse and shimmer—evoking the kinetic energy of early arcade screens.

By merging the legacy of movable type with the pixelated logic of arcade fonts and the animated language of vintage software, Architypes proposes a new typographic architecture—one that is both historical and speculative. Architypes is interested in how media shapes architecture, and how typography, from Gutenberg to Game Boy, continues to define the way we imagine space.