Will Wiles

Author, freelance

Will Wiles writes about architecture and design. His debut novel, Care of Wooden Floors (2012), won a Betty Trask award, and his second novel is The Way Inn (2014). He lives in London.

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Written by Will Wiles

Two young women walking past a weathered mural of Samuel Beckett’s face on a wall with peeling paint and worn textures.

essayStories and literature

Walk the lines

Can walking the city streets still be liberating, when every path is paved with literary quotations and artistic prefiguring?

Will Wiles

Digital painting of an industrial village with tall chimneys releasing smoke, stone houses, a canal and overgrown grass in the foreground.

essayComputing and artificial intelligence

Hunger games

A new wave of videogames offers lessons in powerlessness, scarcity and inevitable failure. What makes them so compelling?

Will Wiles

A railway yard at night with light trails from passing trains, illuminated signals and an industrial building in the background.

essayArchitecture

The concrete tangle

The urge to tidy up cities is deadening – let’s celebrate the tangled chaos and honky-tonk energy that keep them alive

Will Wiles

Drawing of a man in a suit with a stern expression, standing before a circular background with large orange-and-black octopus tentacles.

essayInformation and communication

Creepypasta

With a flood of dark memes and viral horror stories, the internet is mapping the contours of modern fear

Will Wiles

A collage of various artworks, photos, and digital images arranged in a grid, including abstract patterns, pixelated portraits, and text quotes.

essayArt

The machine gaze

As the boundaries between digital and physical dissolve, can the New Aesthetic help us see things more clearly?

Will Wiles