The Routledge Companion to Games in Architecture and Urban Planning

Tools for Design, Teaching, and Research

Marta Brković Dodig, Linda N. Groat, Marta Brković Dodig, Linda N. Groat

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429805707
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

The Routledge Companion to Games in Architecture and Urban Planning aims to identify and showcase the rich diversity of games, including: simulation games, game-like approaches, game scenarios, and gamification processes for teaching/learning, design and research in architecture and urban planning.

This collection creates an opportunity for exchange and reflection on games in architecture and urban planning. Theoretical discussions, descriptive accounts, and case studies presenting empirical evidence are featured; combined with reflections, constructive critical analysis, discussions of connections, and various influences on this field.

Twenty-eight international contributors have come together from eleven countries and five continents to present their studies on games in architecture and urban planning, pose new questions, and advocate for innovative perspectives.

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Architecture and Urban Planning? Game On!

Games as Tools for Design, Teaching/Learning, and Research in Architecture and Urban Planning

Marta Brković Dodig and Linda N. Groat

The use of games as a way of discovering and exploring the world around us is not a recent phenomenon. As the recent book Die Welt im Spiel (The World in the Game) by Strouhal (2015) demonstrates, games have been used since the late seventeenth century as a means of exploring cities, faraway lands, exotic countries, and fantasy worlds – in other words, as a way of traveling through space and time. In recent history, in the 1960s and 1970s Richard D. Duke, now Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, brought games into the urban planning arena and university context. His work is often considered to be the starting point for recent developments in the design methodology of simulation and gaming. By focusing on modes of human communication, by describing game design processes and techniques, and by cataloging games known at the time, Duke framed games as the language of the future (Duke, 1974). In his book Gaming: The Future’s Language (1974) Duke laid out the theoretical framework for the use of games as consensus-reaching tools in “complex decision environments” (Duke, 2011: 342). There he introduced the concept of games as a “multilog” communication format – “multiple, simultaneous dialogue in a carefully structured environment” (Duke, 2011: 348). In later years, together with his colleague Cathy S. Greenblat, Duke described games as frameworks for citizen and student participation, and as tools for teaching/learning, design, and research (Duke and Greenblat, 1979; Greenblat and Duke, 1981) – all of these perspectives continue to influence many architects and urban planners working today in this field.

From the 1970s onwards, Henry A. Sanoff, now Professor Emeritus from the North Carolina State University, developed, employed, and evaluated games, thereby establishing them as effective tools for participatory design. Sanoff´s book, Design Games from 1979, presented an array of environmental games, discussed their rules, concepts, and methods for recording games, thereby providing a much-needed guide to architects, students, and teachers on how to use these games to discuss their preferences and learn. Other pioneering games conceived at the time, including “CLUG” (Feldt et al., 1972), “Impass, At-Issue, Conceptual Mapping Game” (Duke and Greenblat, 1979), “Metropolis” (Duke, 1964) – are still today a source of immense inspiration for everyone working in this field. At the end of the 70s and beginning of 80s, the discussion on the matter was so vivid and alive that, for example, the Journal of Architectural Education devoted its entire September issue (Vol. 33, No. 1) in 1979 to the gaming theme. Clearly, the use of games in architecture and urban planning is not new; it derives from a long tradition.

Since the conception of the field in the 70s, and up to the present day, three distinctive applications of games can be distinguished: as tools for design; for teaching/learning; and for research. Indeed, analysis of the academic debate and examination of the recent contribution of practitioners suggest the conclusion that this tripartite set of games still pertains. And yet, many new games are being developed to serve dual purposes (e.g., game as teaching and research tool), or even triple purposes simultaneously (e.g., game as design, teaching/learning, and research). In the following three sections, we will provide a brief overview of these three distinctive subfields of game development, including descriptions of a few illustrative game exemplars.

Following these overview sections, we offer our rationale and purposes for assembling this edited volume, including a preview of the organizing framework for the several book sections, as well as a brief thematic description of each chapter.

Games as Co-Design Tools in Architectural and Urban Planning Practices

There is no singular unanimous definition for games as co-design tools in architecture and urban planning. Co-design games have usually been defined as tools for structuring meaningful involvement and participation of the broader public, non-designers and users, through the introduction of a set of game playing rules, and carried out with the help of tangible game pieces (for a broader set of co-design game definitions see Brandt, 2006). Co-design games are based on democratic premises. In a notable work by Lerner (2014), Making Democracy Fun, the author argues that well-designed games support democratic processes by inviting participation, supporting decision-making and compromise, encouraging collaboration, and rewarding participation. The most extensive definition of design games, widely accepted and quoted most often, states that design games are:

tools for codesign that purposefully emphasize play-qualities such as playful mindset and structure, which are supported by tangible game materials and rules. Instead of being a well-defined method, it is an expression that highlights the exploratory, imaginative, dialogical, and empathic aspects of codesign. The objectives of applying design games are rooted in the design context, i.e., that if one is designing new service models for a bank, the bank practices and their development are connected to the aims of the design game. The means for reaching these objectives are drawn from design practice (e.g., tangible mock-ups and user representations) and from the world of games (e.g., role-playing, turn-taking, make-believe) to deliberately trigger participants’ imaginations as a source of design ideas.

(Vaajakallio, 2012: 218)

The number of co-design games is even more diverse then the list of their definitions. Today, architects and urban planners who work in architecture bureaus or as consultants for local municipal authorities develop games as tools for (co-)design. For example, Hybrid Space Lab¹ – a combination of think tank and design lab led by Professor Elizabeth Sikiaridi and Professor Frans Vogelaar – developed “Make Shift Kit,” an urban computer game supporting the improvement of camp settlements for refugees within the framework of Athens Municipality’s “Urban Innovative Actions” (Polyak, 2018). Make Shift Kit is a digital community tool, to be used by refugees and experts to co-create and adapt these transitional spaces according to their needs. The kit goes beyond meeting basic living requirements by incorporating both the symbolic dimension of community spaces and the emotional dimension of place making. Sikiaridi and Vogelaar also developed City Kit – a combination of urban planning program and computer game – that enables residents to upgrade their neighborhoods. By bringing planning and urban development experts, architects, and urban planners together with the users, the residents become “makers” of the city (Sikiaridi and Vogelaar, 2012). The goal of City Kit is to help users to evaluate the local environments and to incorporate new, imaginative, and creative qualities in the virtual world of the City Kit.

Similarly, die Baupiloten² , a former study-reform project at the Technical University Berlin, and today an architectural office, has developed a myriad of games and game-like tools under the leadership of Susanne Hofmann (one of the contributors in this book). Games developed by die Baupiloten facilitate extremely broad participatory design processes and involve people from all walks of life; in this way, they create effective architecture based on occupants’ needs and wishes (Hofmann, 2018). Die Baupiloten has developed both game formats that can be modified and applied to a variety of contexts as well as fixed-rule games, such as the School Vision game for creatively negotiating and developing a common architectural vision for a school (die Baupiloten, n.d.).

At the urban planning scale, “Play the City” – an international practice based in Amsterdam – supports both public and private entities in organizing city planning projects through gaming. The multidisciplinary team led by Ekim Tan consists of designers, architects, planners, social scientists, and technology experts. Their website lists seven games that range from tackling climate change issues, social challenges within a city, and affordable housing, to integrating information and communications technology (ICT) in city planning and managing, and facilitating the co-design process. The games can either be adapted for use in a specific context; or, a new game can be developed by the team, as they say, “for your city’s burning questions³ .”

In Britain, organizations such as the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), since 2011 known as the “Design Council⁴ ” and the British Council have developed, in consultation with gaming experts, numerous games as participatory tools for envisioning and researching possible futures for local areas. To this rich repertoire belongs the “Urban Ideas Bakery game,” a tool that assists local stakeholders in defining local challenges for themselves; creating innovative design solutions to social challenges in their city; and implementing them (Matthews and Dempster, n.d.; Kahn et al., 2009). The Future City game, supported by the same Creative Cities program by the British Council (British Council, n.d.), is a team-based endeavor that aims to support innovative thinking and actions to improve the quality of life in cities (Kahn et al., 2009; Qureshi and Jackson, 2010). Likewise, the Building Futures Game is a scenario planning tool developed by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA⁵ ), CABE, and the architectural practice the AOC⁶ . The game assists residents in exploring, anticipating, and managing changes in urban areas to develop and enhance the quality of sustainable environments (Cooper and Platt, 2005).

Games as Teaching Tools at Universities and Architecture Schools

Once again, there is also not a common definition of games as teaching tools in architecture and urban planning. Yet, there is wide agreement that games as pedagogical tools at universities and architecture schools have been used effectively for the purposes of enhancing the quality and depth of learning; opening up architectural design studios; and engaging students in real-life challenges through collaboratory and experiential learning.

Margrit Kennedy, a German and USA-based architect, professor, and environmentalist obtained her PhD at the University of Pittsburgh and assumed her professorship at the University of Hanover. Already by 1973, she observed what she considered to be an unfortunate and a sharp delineation between education and urban planning. In contrast, she believed that education should be an ever-evolving process of engaging people of all ages, utilizing all available city resources – human, institutional, commercial, industrial, and recreational. Kennedy’s conclusion is that “the institutional and functional separation of urban planning and education” is obsolete and, even worse, it can hinder the collaboratory thinking from both professions – urban planners and education specialists (Kennedy, 1973: 331). Both education and planning are in need of instruments and tools to facilitate the merging of the field, coordinate and integrate it, thus enabling collaborative thinking about various city future scenarios. These facts are also true for architecture. Kennedy proposed games as such tools, as many of her contemporaries (Wärneryd, 1975) and authors working in this field after her (Salama, 2015: 282). Kennedy (1973) argues that games are, simultaneously, practical participation vehicles for people to be engaged in urban planning; decision-making instruments that can more precisely predict users’ needs and that later can be used by planning agencies; an evolving learning and communication process that can facilitate the understanding between citizens and various city agencies; and dynamic models that are able to capture and simulate the complexity of social and economic aspects.

Games within architecture and urban planning schools have been characterized as powerful collaboratory learning tools, able to support the active engagement of students (Salama, 2013). Games as “simplified slices of reality” (Salama, 2013: 22) have the potential to simulate in an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Endorsement
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Lits of Figures
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Architecture and Urban Planning? Game On!: Games as Tools for Design, Teaching/Learning, and Research in Architecture and Urban Planning
• PART I (Co)-Design Games
• PART II (Co)-Design and Educational Games
• PART III Educational Games
• PART IV Educational and Research Games
• PART V Research Games
• PART VI (Co)-Design, Educational, and Research Games
• Index