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Games, as a design tool within coproduction, offer an interactive and participatory space by bringing diverse stakeholders together in a shared space of negotiation and creativity towards reaching consensus (Brkovic and Groat, 2019). Through the structured mechanics they provide, games enable actors to collectively and creatively envision alternative futures by exploring challenges, developing strategies, and building alliances. Games are both effective instruments for research and engaging pedagogical tools. They encourage experimentation and allow players to test interventions, reflect on their implications, and refine strategies collaboratively.
Specificity and situatedness elevate the transformative power of the games. Embedding local contexts, actors and spatial dynamics into the game’s structure, whether through spatial representation, scenario-based decision-making, or adaptive rule sets, can foster trust and real-life engagement between different stakeholders for meaningful collaboration.
Games can also act as tools to support public awareness in response to crises. They can encourage collective action for developing collaborative strategies and raising awareness of the negative effects of climate change, or in responding to urban contestations. The climate agenda was prominent in the case study presented in this section: ZeroCity+, a board game created to foster collaboration between authorities and communities at a local level to support behavioural and attitudinal changes in people, aiming to tackle the environmental crisis.
With ZeroCity+ project team.
key references:
Brkovic D. M. & Groat, N.L. (2019). Architecture and Urban Planning? Game On! In Routledge Companion to Games in Architecture and Urban Planning, Routledge, New York.
Vasilikou, C., Papamanousakis, Y., Lanuza, F. (2023). The Story of the Design Partnership Behind ZeroCityPlus: A Community Game for Participation and Local Governance Beyond Net Zero Goals. In: Hilal, S., Bedir, M., Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Tamke, M. (eds) Design for Partnerships for Change. UIA 2023. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham.
Vasilikou, C., Papamanousakis, Y. (2022). “They transformed in front of us.” Interview by Leyla Salih. Future Observatory / Design Museum.
A child’s handwriting on a post-it after spending a few minutes watching the game being played. Public Workshop at the Garden of Earthly Delights in Hackney, London. June 2022. Photograph by Felipe Lanuza.
ZeroCity+ game deliberation. Public Workshop at the Garden of Earthly Delights in Hackney, London. June 2022. Photograph by Carolina Vasilikou.
ZeroCity+ gaming board. Public Workshop at the Garden of Earthly Delights in Hackney, London. June 2022. Photograph by Carolina Vasilikou.
RESEARCH PROJECT
RESEARCH PROJECT
ZeroCity+ (the board game)
ZeroCity+ (the board game)
Project:
Zero City Plus: An Urban Game (2021-2022)
Project team:
Carolina Vasilikou, University of Cambridge, (during project: University of Reading), Principal Investigator // Yiorgos Papamanousakis (Urban Transcripts), Industry Partner // Felipe Lanuza, University of Sheffield and University of Nottingham (during project: University of Reading), Research Associate
project summary & co-production approach
In the context of a Design Exchange Partnership (DEP) funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Design Museum in London, we created a game that could serve as a participatory platform for people, local authorities and stakeholders to develop a collective understanding of net zero strategies and environmental care at a neighbourhood scale and everyday life.
ZeroCity+ is to be played in the context of a consultancy service by Urban Transcripts, an international network of experts driven by the ambition to make our cities more socially just in a sustainable world. The game acts as a platform to articulate the vision of its players: citizens, authorities, and possibly other relevant stakeholders, like local businesses for instance. The board is tailored to represent a target area, typically an extensive neighbourhood or urban quarter of a mid-size or big city, or a whole but relatively smaller town or village, where the involved community members live or work.
ZeroCity+ tackles climate change from a bottom-up perspective, and we aim for this to become a tool for collective decision-making and planning for more sustainable and just cities, aligning with UN Sustainable Development Goals.
This design research project involved creating, designing, manufacturing and testing the game in three different community contexts: The Meadows (Nottingham) in February 2022; Reading, in March 2022; and Hackney (London) in June 2022. In a brief period between November 2021 and June 2022, the game developed iteratively, setting a basis for future advancement.
methods for co-producing knowledge + co-design
In ZeroCity+ participants work collectively as a team to mobilise projects and change their lifestyles and behaviours throughout the game to tackle the environmental crisis, by playing their cards and adding tokens with a value measured against carbon emissions to a board that has been specially created to reflect their town/neighbourhood.
Playing between the diagnosis (sharing of knowledge) and action (levers of impact and change discussed collectively) ZeroCity+ creates opportunities for mutual accountability, potentially driving common strategies based on a new common vocabulary for different stakeholders. The game articulates a common ground of conversation and understanding, to drive potential strategies and measures that can be collectively developed and implemented in follow-up stages.
ZeroCity+ started as a prototype around the creation of a board game. Developing iterations include a card game and a digital version that is currently being developed by the University of Cambridge and Urban Transcripts in a new collaboration.
entanglements of justice in co-production and design
Through ZeroCity+, participants acquire environmental literacies and climate awareness, and collectively rehearse strategies and projects that can be extrapolated to their realities. Participants work as a team towards the common goal of “beating” their area carbon footprint and achieving (or surpassing) Net Zero in a fictional timeline of 10 years, which drives a rehearsal of present and future environmental challenges, developing a sense of connectedness and agency for critical action.
The game fosters citizen communication for diverse communities through accessible and low-cost, game-centred workshops. It further favours partnerships of equity, enabling and empowering communities to participate as peers in city-making.
In addition, by motivating people and deepening their engagement in multi-stakeholder initiatives, ZeroCity+ can help councils meaningfully communicate and co-decide using beyond-net-zero literacies, to address the complex challenges of the environmental crisis.
references
Vasilikou, C., Papamanousakis, Y., Lanuza, F. (2023). The Story of the Design Partnership Behind ZeroCityPlus: A Community Game for Participation and Local Governance Beyond Net Zero Goals. In: Hilal, S., Bedir, M., Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Tamke, M. (eds) Design for Partnerships for Change. UIA 2023. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham.
Beyond Net Zero: A Systemic Design Approach. Design Council, UK Government 2021.
Remix(c)ity: A Participatory City (Re)Making Game. Urban Transcripts 2018.
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