City Gaming and Participation

Technologies are transforming architecture into a more reactive and evolutionary organism, able to interact in real time with multiple agents such as the environment, time or user needs. Architecture moves towards the performative (Kolarevic and Malkawi in Performative architecture: beyond instrumentality, Routledge, London, 2004) or a performative instrument (Beesley and Khan in Responsive architecture/performing instruments, The Architectural League of New York, New York, 2009). The emergence of these responsive environments boosts new relations among users, architects and space. If architecture of built (or unbuilt) space can be programmed to perform, the key question to deal with, is who the actuator of such performance is. This paper engages with the idea that responsive technologies, such as Virtual and Augmented Reality and User/Gaming Interfaces, can be used by architects and urban designers as a tool for enhanced participatory design as well as a tool for evaluating existing planning or future design decisions. Two case studies are being presented, which use responsive technologies for creating participatory urban design processes. The case studies have been developed in Mumbai (use of Virtual and Augmented Reality) and Barcelona (use of Gaming Interfaces) as experimental pilot projects for acquiring qualitative and quantitative data on the process of technologically mediated design participation.