Joseph AJ Orion
Joseph AJ Orion is a designer, researcher and systems thinker who builds for the people institutions leave behind.
Before Ravensbourne University London, he spent sixteen years running nights in London's private hire industry. Five thousand drivers. Two and a half million rides. Not behind a screen. Inside the system, at the point where human beings and broken processes meet every single night.
That experience does not sit in the background of his work. It is the work. Every project Orion builds asks the same question: who does this leave out, and why does nobody seem to notice?
His practice moves between spatial interface design, civic infrastructure and platform research. He does not separate the visual from the structural. The way something looks is also the way it operates. The way a system is built is a decision about who matters.
The portfolio is a working desktop operating system, built from scratch. The memorial is a live telemetry grid. The university platform is a navigable 3D space.
None of it is decorative.
He is completing his BSc in UX/UI Design at Ravensbourne University London.
The work is not finished. It is meant to scale.
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The more you learn, the more you unlearn.
Zero Grid, Robert Dale – Some systems forget people. This one refuses.
Zero Grid Composition is a living memorial to Robert Dale, a London private hire driver who passed away in 2024 from stress caused by the TfL licence renewal process. He was 65 years old. The system that was supposed to protect him failed him completely.
Orion's response was not a statement. It was a grid.
The piece renders Robert Dale's driving telemetry as a spatial composition. A dark geometric form moving through concentric orbital paths, tracked in real time with speed, position, heading and orbit radius. The data is not decorative. It is the argument. Every coordinate is a record of a life spent in motion, invisible to the institution that governed him.
Robert Dale Forever.
1959 to infinity. His memory lives on the grid.
AU, OurSpace, The Digital Concierge, Your Guide – Most university welfare platforms track misery. AU OurSpace was built to find your people.
OurSpace is a student and staff platform designed from the inside out. The question it asks is simple: what if a university could make you visible to the right person, at the right moment, without watching you?
At the centre of the space sits Butler Bot, a holographic digital concierge. You navigate to it and it becomes your guide. Select a service and the entire environment transforms around you. Academic mode. Social mode. Wellness mode. Cafe mode. The building reorganises itself around your intent. No cluttered menus. No clinical interfaces. Just a space that responds.
One hundred and twelve campus resources within two taps. Eight mood states that surface relevant support. Ghost Mode when you need to disappear. Vibe Rooms when you need your people. Opt-in presence throughout. No surveillance. No wellness theatre.
The motion system pulses at 65 BPM. That rhythm belongs to Robert Dale. Carried forward deliberately, because the work is connected and the principle never changes.
OurSpace was the beginning of a design language that would grow into Zero Grid.
AU, OurSpace, "You're Not Alone" Communal Board – Orion introduced 3D materialisation as a design language for the first time in this project.
"You're Not Alone" Communal Board, a cornerstone of the "Our Space" wellness environment. It functions as a digital sanctuary, manifesting as a broad, floating trapezoidal plane with soft, rounded edges that curves around the user's perspective to create a sense of enclosure without isolation. This semi-transparent barrier serves as a spatial anchor, separating the user from the infinite grid while providing immediate emotional grounding through shared human experience.
The board’s primary purpose is to display a collection of anonymous, crowd-sourced messages from other students who have navigated similar mental health challenges.
Materilization, Zero Grid, Ravensbourne – Most systems describe a university. This one lets you stand inside it.
The 3D University Grid is the physical materialisation of Zero Grid. The ground floor of Ravensbourne University rendered as a navigable spatial environment, where every room, every zone, and every resource becomes visible and interactive. Students move through the building not as users navigating a directory, but as sovereign pieces within a living grid.
The project translates the constitutional framework of Zero Grid into architecture.
To BE or not to be by Joseph AJ Orion – To BE or not to be is a cinematic exploration of digital existence, extraction, and the systems we unknowingly surrender ourselves to every day. The piece questions what it means to truly exist within