Playfulness intertwined with city-related themes, such as participatory planning and civic media are becoming more popular. In the last ten years, game designers have taken up the theme of play in relation to the urban environment. In this paper, we present a conceptual mapping of “urban play,” through the analysis of eight examples of urban games. Better conceptual tools are necessary to discuss and reflect on how games draw on, or deal with, urban issues. While urban games are diverse in medium, intent, and experience, across the spectrum analyzed in this paper, they hold the potential for various player experiences emerging through play that may be useful to designers. These are: a sense of agency and impact; feelings of relatedness and empathy; an awareness and understanding of complexity, perspective-taking and scenario-building, and either planning or taking action. The conceptual mapping offers scholars and practitioners a more nuanced vocabulary for designing games and playful interventions that might be used to tackle societal issues that either require or could benefit from genuine public involvement as engaged citizens.
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With increase in awareness of the risks posed by climate change and increasingly severe weather events, attention has turned to the need for urgent action. While strategies to respond to flooding and drought are well-established, the effects - and effective response - to heat waves is much less understood. As heat waves become more frequent, longer-lasting and more intense, the Cool Towns project provides cities and municipalities with the knowledge and tools to become heat resilient. The first step to developing effective heat adaptation strategies is identifying which areas in the city experience the most heat stress and who are the residents most affected. This enables decision-makers to prioritise heat adaptation measures and develop a city-wide strategy.The Urban Heat Atlas is the result of four years of research. It contains a collection of heat related maps covering more than 40,000 hectares of urban areas in ten municipalities in England, Belgium, The Netherlands, and France. The maps demonstrate how to conduct a Thermal Comfort Assessment (TCA) systematically to identify heat vulnerabilities and cooling capacity in cities to enable decision-makers to set priorities for action. The comparative analyses of the collated maps also provide a first overview of the current heat resilience state of cities in North-Western Europe.
De Experience Tool: Mapping facts and practice to develop (spatial) experiences (Moes, Schrandt, Manuputty, Admiraal & van der Mark, 2019), is in eerste instantie ontwikkeld door docent-onderzoekers en een oud-student van het Amsterdam Fashion Institute (AMFI) om studenten beter onderbouwde afwegingen te laten maken over inrichting van bijvoorbeeld metrostations, winkels maar ook tentoonstellingen. De toolkit is dus niet ontwikkeld in het kader van Designing Experiencescapes of De Tentoonstellingsmaker van de 21ste Eeuw, maar deze onderzoeken hebben wel een belangrijke inhoudelijke basis gegeven voor de toolkit en zijn dus zeer relevant voor de (toekomstige) tentoonstellingsmaker. Het doel van deze tool is om spelers te inspireren bij en informeren over het creëren van belevingen in (hoofdzakelijk) fysieke ruimtes. De tool is voor iedereen die geïnteresseerd is in het creëren van belevingen en met name interessant voor studenten die een beleving willen neerzetten, in welke vorm dan ook en professionals uit de museale en de retailsector die invloed hebben op het inrichten van fysieke ruimtes.
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