Keynote Speech
Ekim Tan
Ekim is the founder of the Amsterdam and Istanbul based city design and research network ‘Play the City'. This network focuses on strategic urban development in emerging countries, and consists of young and ambitious professionals from Cairo to Istanbul to Amsterdam. Her hybrid worldview has been shaped by diverse cultural conditions of the east and west, islam and christianity, poverty and prosperity. Her methods have been applied worldwide, in global cities including Istanbul, Amsterdam, Shenzhen, Tirana, Cape Town, Brussels.
https://www.playthecity.nl
PLAY THE CITY: DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS FOR CITIES
Games are as old as society, yet when a spatial designer enters the world of games, a new world opens, bright with novelty and possibility as a relatively unexplored instrument for shaping spaces that are more meaningful to humans. How much can an architect or an urbanist learn from games? Can games teach them about trust and ownership, as platforms with transparent rules valid for everyone with common goals? Can games teach them about learning and engagement, providing fun with strangers while constantly being challenged individually and collectively? Can games teach them about training and strategizing for the real world, as they fail but are allowed the chance to restart? Can games teach them about communication and avoiding jargon, with their effective visual environment and simple language?
From IBM’s CityOne to Will Wright’s SimCity, and from Richard Duke’s Metropolis to Buckminster Fuller’s World Game, a long list of games relate to cities in their staging, or directly these games take place in real urban areas. Some as single-player games run on predefined algorithms and quantitative feedback loops; Some provide a multiplayer environment. Rules for the organization and composition of cities emerge from the negotiations among multiple actors; an open system where new rules can be invented or unused rules abandoned, rather than a closed game with a predefined algorithm, promise more for spatial designers.
Perhaps more than a city-themed game, an environment that can be modified by the players — that can host a wide range of players and not focus on winning or losing, but on building experience and partnerships as reward. Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), a role-playing and story-building adventure game, that at first glance says little about urban development, might become most relevant for a game system trying to understand and develop cities. Such was the case for the game method invented, evolved and implemented since 2009 by Play the City, a serious gaming company focusing on the research and development of urban spaces.