Credits: Stockcake

Engaging citizens and stakeholders in the increasingly complex social and environmental issues of the built environment is one of the key challenges of the current age. Games, with their ability to attract, persuade, and foster empathy, can be a potent tool in connecting the public with urban projects, and vice versa.

The Serious Games Seminar is designed to provide students from architecture and other design backgrounds with a springboard into the discipline of game design. This highly practical week will see students identify sites across the city for playful intervention, translate research findings into imaginative game mechanics, and work together on micro game projects designed to connect with the public. 

A mixture of theory, practical exercises and fieldwork, the week will leave students with a toybox of playful techniques to help communicate data from, and gather data for, their architectural and urban design projects.

Credits: Stockcake

Learning Objectives

At course completion the student will:

• Learn how to critically differentiate games and gameplay
• Understand and apply basic elements of game design in pursuit of ‘serious’ outcomes
• Recognize the importance of interaction to public engagement
• Learn how to employ different documentation techniques for interactive events
• Develop and iterate on a playable outcome for an element or site of their research