We are at the end of our two-year activity and research programme Designing Cities for All (DCFA) in which we dive into (re)designing inclusive cities. Alongside numerous designers, researchers, experts, artists, and other partners – we invite a total of six Fellows to curate parts of the programme. We are thrilled to introduce the next and last DCFA fellowship: City Games in the Age of Urban AI with Ekim Tan.
From the end of September to November 2024, we will have our final DCFA fellowship with Ekim Tan. She obtained her doctoral degree at the Delft University of Technology with a focus on ‘City gaming’, a method that refers to the specific implementation of serious games to city development questions. Later she published her book, Play the City: Games Informing Urban Development (2017) to provide a deeper understanding of our values, experiences, and intellectual attitude. In 2010, she founded Play the City, an Amsterdam and Istanbul-based city gaming practice that helps governments and market parties effectively collaborate with stakeholders. In 2016, Ekim co-founded Games for Cities, an umbrella organization of game-like practices worldwide. Play the City leads the way in applying games to complex, multiplayer city challenges.
During this fellowship, we will explore the role of city games in the era of artificial intelligence. This series aims to advance research by design, highlighting the need for engagement to achieve real impact. With Urban AI entering city practices, the series will examine how city games can enhance democratic practices and inspire spatial design within increasingly digitised communities.
Make sure not to miss the very last series of DCFA! Register here for the first episode on Monday 30th September on Urban AI & Digitalisation.
Upcoming events
In the coming weeks and months Play The City curates three programmes on City Games in The Age of Urban AI to explore the future of urban living, using the power of city games and AI to create more inclusive, connected, and future-proof cities.
More about Designing Cities for All
Over the first two years of Designing Cities for All (DCFA), we’ve learned about exclusion by design and the (re)design of inclusive cities. Along the journey, a certain question kept popping up: what exactly does ‘for all’ entail? After focusing mostly on the ‘who’ over the past two years, DCFA is rebooting as Designing Cities for All: RE-generation. This time, the series is also incorporating the ‘what’ by looking through the fresh lens of regenerative design. This emerging field might very well be a promising answer to the challenges of our time, as it focuses on the design of products, services, systems, and processes that lead to both social and ecological recovery while keeping systems healthy.
