7.3 GAMES AS CO-DESIGN TOOLS IN URBAN DESIGN AND PLANNING PRACTICES

7.3 GAMES AS CO-DESIGN TOOLS IN URBAN DESIGN AND PLANNING PRACTICES

There are several interactive video game models used in urban planning. As a sociotechnical and political

decision-making process, urban planning necessitates communication and engagement from a wide

range of stakeholders, including the general public, legislators, planners, architects, and others. In

addition, urban planning has a significant impact on urban landscape and aesthetics. Thus, planning

becomes a systematic activity, resembling resource management video games, construction games, and

multiplayer online games in certain ways.

In this regard one of the most recent and updated implementation of game design tools in urban

planning was that of the city of London, which developed a VR 3D map to support planning

methodologies and to help future development. It was created during the Covid-19 period, prompted by

the need to shift to working from home. The city of London was the first to produce a virtual reality map

with detailed reproduced buildings, including facades, streets, and traffic lights, among other features.

It's a "digital twin" of the real city that facilitates decision-making in the Square Mile, London's city

center. People and decision-makers may use the VR Model to see the impact of new buildings before

they decide to build them. Furthermore, it allows various stakeholders to experiment with alternative

designs, see visually the impact, and make the best decision.

Figure 137 City of London virtual reality map

Recently, in the city center was approved a building at Fenchurch Street, which is possible to be explored

in VR and to understand the impact not only in bird eye view, but also from the human scale perspective.

The Virtual Reality (VR) of the City of London is a tool that administrators and developers may use to deal

with participatory decision-making. Typically, ordinary people are unaware of the environmental

consequences of architecture projects and new proposals. As a result, this technology enables people to

observe and better appreciate their impact not just on a human scale, but also on the city's skyline. The

use of game tools and augmented and immersive visual technologies in urban planning in the case of

London create a more dynamic, real, flexible collaborative environment.

Today a lot of research is done on the use of video game tools and technologies to conceptualize and

realize urban design projects. A collective of architects You+Pea (founded by Sandra Youkhana and Luke

Caspar Pearson) in the last yeas established “Videogame Urbanism” studio as part of Urban Design

master at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. The aim of the studio was to research the interactive

nature of video games and to use it as a tool in architecture and urbanism practice. They research on the

way architecture and urban planning processes can be communicated to large audience, on how to

incorporate narrative in their representation in order to offer alternative ways to vie the city, to give

voice to different stakeholders. In addition, they research on how put into evidence architecture

qualities at a structural and cultural level, to embrace relationships between rules, interactive actions,

and audiovisual representation and to investigate on their application in complex urban and

architectonic systems.

Figure 138 The Playable Planning Notice, 2017. Digital screenshot drawing from game. Zhibei Li, Shenghan Wu, Meiwen , Zhang, Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL ( source: in ( Pearson, Youkhana, 2020). Figure 139 Playable city, experimentation in Video game urbanism studio by you + pea ( source: https://washmagazine.com/Videogame-Urbanism)

Complex urban systems are viewed as games, and are turned into games, allowing for a better

understanding of how cities are shaped and offer new methods to interact with these dynamics

(Pearson, Youkhana, 2020). These games can provide direct feedback for designers and can be easily

accessible for people. Kars Alfrink (2015) viewed the use of game technologies in urbanism as a “playful