SCAPE Urban Design Simulator
SCAPE is a playful simulation designed to demonstrate how decisions in an urban planning process have both a positive and negative impact on both the community and the environment.
SCAPE is an urban sustainability simulation game developed for and installed in the Kelvin Grove Urban Village in Brisbane Australia.
For Schools groups, SCAPE provides tools to understand and apply the concepts of urban sustainability and the process of sustainable decision-making. These tools assist with a process of constant and iterative learning, planning, applying, visualising and reflecting. Students participate in groups, each representing one of six pre-defined community characters (retailer, renter, property developer, student etc). In these roles, the students negotiate to make considered decisions through a series of urban design processes. These processes involve complex understandings of issues impacting land use, size and shape of the village, housing choices and transport options.
“I liked the scenarios we had to play. It was a good way to pretend you had a say in your village. My team negotiated very well and at the end stage our characters were happy. The statistics on the info bar were also very intriguing, in that you could see how much your village design was going to cost, the percentage of housing types and lots more.”
(Year 9 student)
SCAPE is updated in real-time to display three kinds of feedback:
- Visual feedback in the form of a 3d model of the city
- Detailed statistical feedback quantifying the visualisation
- Approval feedback from each of the characters
“The simulation was fun, educational and exciting experience!” Student
SCAPE demonstrates a successful synthesis of expertise provided by teachers, urban developers, and government consultants, helping it authentically simulate real-world scenarios.
“What I saw literally blew me away… they had developed a wonderful computer simulation that gave the students the opportunity to make decisions about what an area like the KGUV might look like and how they might ‘see’ it” (Russell, School Facilitator)
Using a design-based research methodology resulting in innovative approaches and techniques in adapting digital games and simulation technologies to create dynamic and engaging experiences in pedagogical contexts. It also illustrates the possibilities for urban designers to engage a variety of communities in the processes, complexities and possibilities of urban development and sustainability.
“So, a big part of the process was immersing ourselves into the domain of urban development and becoming semi-experts in it and channel it along with our development knowledge into creating a simulation.” (Dave, Programmer)
To refine the design of various components, we conducted case study analysis, synthesised multiple large data sets and consulted with various expert in the fields of urban design, education, building management and human factors.
The work is now installed in the Kelvin Grove Urban Village community centre and is visited regularly by school groups.
“I would describe it [SCAPE] as giving the students a more textured view of what is involved in urban development. Most people’s training around development in the built environment, planning, and architecture is often quite technical, but actually it is much more political and SCAPE’s clear point of difference for me is that it gives students a sense of what’s involved around that. And that’s probably its biggest point of difference in some ways. There have always been a lot of courses you can do in schools like ‘let’s redesign this area’. But we bring in the fact that there are developers, planners, politicians, and local residents. This takes normal geography or social studies into the round, as well as the chance for students to actually get some sense of decision making around the key stages of the planning process.” (George, KGUV Facilitator)
SCAPE formed the basis for a subsequent PhD Study awarded an APA Scholoarship: Podleschny, Nicole (2012) Games for change and transformative learning: an ethnographic case study. PhD thesis, Queensland University of Technology: http://eprints.qut.edu.au/58142/
This study set out to understand how playing serious games/games for change could evoke the potential for transformative learning. The simulation game SCAPE offered an opportunity to explore some of the emerging issues arising when considering gameplay in an educational context. (Nicole, PhD)
Collaborators
Deb Polson: Research Leader and Principal Designer
David Wallace: Programmer
Sherwin Huang: Visual Artist
Warwick Mellow: 3D Artist
The Partners
Australasian CRC for Interaction Design
The Hornery Institute
KGUV Planners
Queensland University of Technology
