For Beijing-born designer Can Ge, architecture was the first canvas. Early in his career, he contributed to large-scale projects with global firms such as SOM and Gensler, experiences that taught him the rigor of building at scale and the discipline of shaping environments for thousands of people.
Yet something felt unfinished. “Buildings can inspire, but they’re often static,” Ge recalls. “I wanted to design experiences that could respond, adapt, and involve people directly.” That realization set him on a new trajectory, moving away from steel and concrete and toward the frontier of human–computer interaction.
His breakthrough came with Apex AR, an augmented reality platform for civic engagement. Rather than confining urban planning to drawings and boardrooms, Apex AR allows residents to experience future streetscapes in situ. In collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley, Ge tested the system on real neighborhoods: citizens could hold up their phones or wear AR devices to see proposed changes — trees planted, sidewalks widened, traffic rerouted — right where they stood.
During one pilot, a UC Berkeley student described the experience as “like stepping into the future of my own block — I could see how a small change in design would affect my daily walk to class.” A local resident, Jade, added that “for the first time, I felt my opinion mattered, because I wasn’t just imagining plans on paper, I was seeing them right in front of me.”
The impact was immediate. Community feedback became more intuitive and accessible, enabling planners to incorporate real-world reactions rather than abstract comments on paper. The project demonstrated how immersive technology could make civic participation more democratic and transparent, reducing the distance between experts and the public. Apex AR went on to receive international recognition, winning both the MUSE Design Award and the New York Design Award for its innovation in urban technology.
Ge carried this exploration further with Reality of Virtuality, a VR e-sports arena that blurred the line between competition and performance space. The project transformed the idea of a stadium into an immersive theater, where audiences and players shared overlapping realities. It was selected for major exhibitions, including the Arte Laguna Prize exhibition in Shanghai and the CICA Museum in Korea, demonstrating its resonance across international art and design communities.
Together, these projects marked Ge’s pivot into immersive design, focusing on AR, VR, and AI interfaces that weave virtual and physical worlds. Drawing from architecture’s sense of space, he reframes it for technologies that are dynamic and interactive.
“My goal is to design systems where people don’t just consume space, but actively shape it,” Ge says.
With international awards and exhibitions recognizing his work, Ge continues to pursue the same question that first led him beyond architecture: how to design experiences that make the future feel tangible, and make people feel present in it.
This article was written in cooperation with Jason Phillips