This game lets players envision, experience and reflect on the sustainable city of tomorrow.

Urban sustainability transformations are urgently needed, but they will have significant effects on the daily lives of city dwellers. As ways to imagine, co-design, and enact sustainable urban futures, experiential approaches that bring futures to life are becoming increasingly popular, as are experiments with the present-day urban environment. With the aim of combining the strengths of these two futures approaches, researchers from Utrecht University and game studio Ijsfontein developed an applied urban futures game that enables its players to reflect on and imagine solutions to complex sustainability problems. This game, Utrecht2040, provides its players with sustainability content, reflection, and motivation for action. The game was played with more than 800 Utrecht University students in a series of sessions. The digital infrastructure and large number of players provided unique opportunities for measuring outcomes. Our results indicate that this mix of experiential and experimental gaming offers a new way for players to collectively create glimpses into relevant sustainable urban futures. At the individual player level, participants reported an increased understanding of sustainability and motivation to act. We conclude that large-scale collective experiential and experimental futures games in urban environments are a high-potential avenue for overcoming the “crisis of the imagination”, and creating inclusive urban futures that inspire action.

https://utrecht2040.sites.uu.nl/

Details

Team members : Astrid Mangnus, Dr. Joost Vervoort

Project leader(s) : Dr. Karin Rebel

Company : Ijsfontein

Sponsors : Utrecht University Faculty of Geosciences; Educate-IT

Descriptions

Credits

Universiteit Utrecht

Universiteit Utrecht

Universiteit Utrecht

Universiteit Utrecht

Universiteit Utrecht

Universiteit Utrecht

Utrecht University