Tracing (in)visibilising practices: engaging with simulations for architecture and spatial planning

Using ethnographic vignettes from the development of simulations for architectural design and spatial planning in university contexts, this article discusses how the material, embodied, and tacit dimensions of developing and doing research with simulations can be opened up to analysis. We ask how (in)visibility comes to matter in simulations and how it is made and unmade in different situations. In particular, we explore how specific enactments of the things that are simulated and the practices involved in producing and handling them are rendered (in)visible through the simulation process. We argue that focusing on the politics of (in)visibility in making simulations can render power relations underpinning architectural and spatial planning practices more apparent.