Kevin Harris today adds to the debate on Skyhouse, the proposal for very tall mixed-tenure residential buildings in London, by suggesting their design may be a test of whether we are going for US-style machines for living, to serve the individual in isolation, or more European approaches valuing social interaction. He has a nice quote from J.C Ballard's 1975 High rise. This discussion started at an iSociety seminar around how far social software could help build social connections. Kevin kindly gives another plug for my idea of running a game or simulation to play these ideas through.
I was thinking on the lines of the games I've developed together with Drew Mackie, who is by background both an urban designer and games designer. You can see a few on the Usefulgames blog we've just started, and there'll be more shortly.
Generally we start with the situation - either real or 'as if' scenario - including who's involved, what's happening, why changes or developments may be needed. Define the challenge. We then move to possible actions that may be generated by people in role, playing roles, and/or using cards with some ideas on them. From there it is into prioritising, developing ideas in more detail, working out who might do what and so on.
Drew has written an article Why games here. As he says, games and simulations are not necessarily predictive. They can, however, yield insights into the attitudes that different interests may take, and the conflicts or collaborations that may arise. They get people thinking out of the box. It would be fascinating to play through Kevin's US and European scenarios for Skyhouse, exploring the influences different communication systems (and cultures) might have. Maybe US and Brit teams?
Will Davies of iSociety today asks for case studies and other content for the Social Software for Skyscrapers presentation, they are making at Etcon, the Emerging Technologies conference in San Diego in February. I would love to think they could get people there playing games, but the time slot is too short. But why not stage a game over here beforehand, and report that as one of the case studies? Games are emerging social technologies too...
Update
Will has posted the presentation made at Etcon
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