tool for scientific investigation and collaboration. World Building Institute In October 2008, McDowell founded the World Building Institute. The preeminent knowledge space for designers and creators in cross-platform narrative media, the Institute provides opportunities for creative thinkers across multiple disciplines to explore how world building and narrative design can be applied in broad contexts. Current members include: François Audouy, Christopher Bailey, Wolfgang Bergmann, Jim Bissell, John Seely Brown, Rick Carter, Chris Defaria, Dr. Syliva Earle, Scott Fisher, Terry Jones, Ann Pendleton-Jullian, Yuval Sharon, among many others. From 2007 to 2016 the World Building Institute hosted the Science of Fiction Festival every eighteen months. Centered around how creativity and art-science projects affect the human experience, the event reached upwards of 300 participants each year, from corporate leaders to youth from 6–16. In 2014, the practice-based initiative focused on how world building can change the future of storytelling, thus providing an opportunity for fiction to be the testing ground for reality within the World Building Media Lab's Rilao project. The Institute has a strong presence in Europe. Since 2008 Juan Diaz Bohorquez has been the European Director of the World Building Institute. For the past 14 years Juan Diaz Bohorquez has closely collaborated with Alex McDowell in creating, developing and advancing their world building methods and narrative system. For the past decade the World Building Institute has hosted workshops at the Berlin Film Festival, at the Berlinale Talents. Awards In 2002 he won a San Diego Film Critics Society award in the Best Production Design category for his work on Minority Report and, in 2004, an Art Directors Guild award for Excellence in Production Design for The Terminal. In 2006, McDowell was named Royal Designer for Industry by the RSA, the UK's most prestigious design society, and was appointed Visiting Artist at the MIT Media Lab. References External links Official website University of Southern California Faculty Page World Building Institute World Building Media Lab 5D GlobalStudio The Terminal Diary 1955 births British film designers Living people Malaysian people of English descent Alumni of the Central School of Art and Design