Recently the Ideas City Festival took over New York, bringing with it a storm of new thinking and innovation for urban planning and social development. The theme of the festival is “Untapped Capital: what unused resources do we have at our disposal to improve the cityscape?” The situations presented often relate specifically to New York, however, the ideas they suggest can be applied to almost any urban space.
Among the many interesting lectures was a panel discussion on how Play and Gaming could contribute to the urban environment. The panel talked about how a game is in essence a structure in which play can happen. Thus, they likened a cityscape to a game environment but rather than digital structures, the city is made up of physical ones.
Kemi Ilesami is an arts facilitator who works with artists in Manhattan to use urban spaces in new and creative ways. Suran Song is an artist who participated in Ilesami’s program. Yoga is a significant element of Song’s daily practice and is something she also teaches. However, she felt that it was a practice that catered specifically to those that could afford it, high income earners or the so-called 1%. Song therefore used her local Laundromat as a new space to offer free yoga classes to anyone in her neighborhood. Thus, an urban space used for a mundane activity was transformed, allowing for a new urban interaction and, as Ilesami said, “Creating spaces where strangers become neighbors.”
Charles Renfro is a designer whose firm was partially responsible for redesigning the Highline, which Renfro offers as an ideal example of untapped capital. Unused for decades, the Highline was on the brink of being destroyed when various residents petitioned for it to remain. Renfro spoke of how he started with the idea of illicitness: prior to its redesigning, the highline offered a space in the middle of the urban landscape where people could engage in practices for which the space was not originally intended and thus play within the urban system. The new Highline was designed with this in mind to be playful and natural. As an example, Renfro talked of the planting design which was based on the cracking pavements of the original structure. The Highline also allowed for a reframing of the cityscape, allowing users to observe and interact with the city in new forms. This created a new sense of play within the urban space: as an example, Renfro described how a cabaret singer whose apartment looked onto the Highline began giving performances to people walking past her window. The essence of Renfro’s design concept is to ‘unscript the city’: making a system that encourages the anticipatable.
Game designer and NYU lectured Eric Zimmerman spoke about how games are essentially spaces in which to make new meaning. He spoke of play as “what exists as the non-utilitarian spaces” or “the moments in between.” Like Renfro, Zimmerman discussed how games necessitate a structure – rules that can be bent or broken in order to play. This is a process of creating spaces of possibility. Besides designing online games, Zimmerman also creates games in public spaces as artwork installations: among his works is Interference, which took place on the streets of Paris and forced users to interact and play with strangers. Zimmerman spoke of valuing play itself rather than as a means to an end.
The final speaker was Constance Steinkuehler, a researcher and professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Steikuehler gave a research rather than a creative perspective, but offered a great deal of insight into the significance of games to urban policy. She spoke of games as “architecture for engagement.” As an example, she drew on research conducted on high-school students with a below-average reading level. These students read at levels far below their grade. However, when grade-appropriate texts were inserted into video games, the students were able to read at an advanced level. The conclusion of the research was that “if you care about what you’re doing you will become good at it.” Game designers, she said, are essentially attempting to make problems interesting and seductive. She suggests the possibility of using these structures in an educational environment so as to encourage student learning through play and gaming. Play thus becomes not only an enjoyable and challenging activity, but also a valuable resource for public policy.
— Oscar Lopez
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