Mind Games

This paper describes the preliminary stages and the theoretical and methodological inspiration for the design of UrbanCraft, a gamified activity based on Kevin Lynch’s mental maps and aiming at enhancing youth participation and inclusion in urban co-design and governance. This activity draws on previous local experiences on participation and social inclusion, held in the Southern Italian city of Palermo, in an attempt to mix urban studies, serious games and artificial intelligence methodologies. In this experiment, we designed a gamified activity conceived for nine- to twelve-year-old primary and secondary school children, due to our previous cooperation with several primary and secondary schools in Palermo. Overall, the goal of this proposal is to adapt Lynch’s notions of imageability and public images to a serious game and lead the players to an enhanced spatial awareness of their neighborhood and the entire city. Although UrbanCraft is still in its early design stages, the existing network of public institutions, research centers and schools provides a fertile ground for developing the project.