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Richard Buday Targets Health Issues in an Entertaining Way Some may wonder what an architect has to do with video gaming and health issues. Others may argue that you become what you play. Others, like Richard Buday, FAIA, have been able to relate those issues in a logical and effective manner. Buday is a Kent State University ’77 alumnus who earned his degree in architecture. Currently, he is the president of Archimage, a Houston-based architecture design studio that, together with experts at the Children Nutrition Research Center of Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine, is attempting to change the behavior of children who may be prone to suffer from obesity or type II diabetes. Buday and his associates hope that through interactive videogames, “Nanoswarm: Invasion from Inner Space” and “Escape from Diab,” children will feel more motivated to choose a healthier lifestyle — which they will need to do to succeed in the game. “We are trying to use proven evidence based in behavioral change techniques, so children would learn by experience that exercising and eating healthy is key to success,” Buday says about the games. Buday hopes to have the games on the market by the beginning of 2008. It takes an average of two to four years to create the games. And Archimage already has a track record of success, creating for a host of clients computer graphics that have won more than 30 international awards for computer imagery projects. Buday credits the educational background that he acquired at Kent State for providing him with many lessons and opportunities. The architecture program first introduced Buday to computers, and it gave him the opportunity to study a semester in Florence, Italy. Those opportunities, he says, enhanced his understanding of architecture as the “mother art” and the larger role that architects can play in different areas; not just about building and design. For Buday, being an architect also means being a painter, a sculptor, a writer, a musician, an illustrator. And being an architect with today’s computer technology has an even greater advantage because it gives architects the opportunity to become the renaissance men of the era of technology. “I suggest to students that computers are the first new idea to affect our professions since the imperial Roman empire. Embrace it [technology] and figure out what you can do with it that no one else can,” Buday says. Buday advises students to also keep their eyes open for opportunities, and future architects to not be afraid to think outside the box, and have enough confidence to present their ideas and convince others that they have the right approach. “Be prepared to take risks, have fun and look for what is on the other side of the road because you never know what you can find,” Buday says. |
