The problem of our epoch is the problem of the house
— Le Corbusier (1919)

DreamHaus is a third person adventure / design game. DreamHaus uses architecture as an entry point for learning AP-level mathematics, engineering, and physics material. Players examine virtual architectural sites (such as the Tokyo Olympic Stadium), solve physics and engineering-based puzzles, and complete architectural design challenges using the game’s design tools. Players may also participate in a web-based community surrounding the game, submitting their designs, viewing others’ work, or offering critique on designs.

DreamHaus draws on the artistic allure of architecture and romantic history to make Engineering and Physics accessible to a diverse audience of players. Players explore fantastic virtual buildings, solve thought-provoking Physics and Engineering puzzles, manipulate virtual Engineering Systems, share their work in virtual communities. These game practices have proven to be successful with non-gamers in games such as Myst, SimCity, and The Sims. DreamHaus capitalizes on games’ ability to represent buildings as systems, and allows players to learn through manipulating these systems. DreamHaus is grounded in David Perkins’ Teaching for Understanding a pedagogical framework that is designed to foster deep, intuitive understandings of phenomena by providin learners multiple entry paths into understanding and performance-based modes of expression.

DreamHaus

Serious games allows for a re-consideration of the meaning of learning and entertainment. A new way for reconsidering what is worth to spend time in ….

SeriousGames.org

if you wanted to design a city, what rules would you make?

The effort to maximise one’s wealth through personal profits and land speculation creates all sorts of problems in the modern city, and that is difficult to administer such a city.

Should decisions affecting all the players be made by one of them? Where to place major buildings, where to locate city services, and what kind of services to provide should be decided by everyone.

Hudson, Ohio: the anatomy of sprawl

This article describe the morphological approach to the urban study of a city, establishing a system of analysis that breaks the physical city down into fundamental elements that are found in all cities. Sveral steps are taken to analyse the city:
a. study the population (and growth)
b. locate urban core and village center
c. define land use (functional study, classifying areas and corridors by their use)
form is different from function
d. describe land subdivision (blocks, districts, tissues, regions)
e. proceed through an historical comparison
f. arrange the components of the city into broad groups (site, buildings, objects) this is related to the order of endurance of components.
g. analyse the cadastral map where two broad groups of spatial ordering componets (paths and plts) can be thought of as a “checkboard” upon which the physical elements of the city are composed and built.
h. compare the different layers representing these different components.
i. explore the topography of the site.
The author sketches an operative approach while planning the urban expansions and redesign according to each particular tissue . For the elastic tissue, there is no proper methodology, so, in this sense, there is space for experimenting new approaches, trying to mix phisical walks with traditional approaches.

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Most of the tasks described above requires the following cognitive tasks:
1. comparison
2. build exemplar units
3. layering
4. define transitions points

Is it possible to incorporate these tasks in a collaborative game?

1. The gaming board is the cadastral map
2. The size of the city should be determined by the number of participants
3. The goal is to maximise the citizen’s wealth
4. [LAND] Businessman and factory owners expect to collect profits on their business which can be connected to the land value which will result in increased profits.
5. [PEOPLE] if people have to travel a lot to reach their destination they loose their work efficiency
6. [GOVERNMENT] one or more players represent the city government, they have to act in agreement. Also the government can be elected with secret ballot.

MapTribe is moving towards the direction of tool for supporting urban planning. During the past few weeks we sketched possible applications for this technology:
1. place a landmark_ define zones, track the geometry of a place.
2. contextual alerts_ social navigation.
3. additional information_ Geographical Information System (GIS) -> Local Observation: data you can observe directly and that you cannot find elsewhere.
4. Mix physical and conceptual experience: physical experience is an important added value to the cognitive experience.
5. Movement tracking.

An interesting idea for the scenario is to ask students to follow a street that doesn’t exist any more. They can follow the street using the historical map on their mobile and they can leave landmarks in the new map of the place for comparing the the maps but also for understanding physically how the landscape was modified during the years.

Another interesting activity is related to the making students stepping back from the map and encouraging them to take their perspective:

For this purpose we envisioned an activity of taking pictures of the facade of buildings and relate these information to the gps position and send back to the server for building an interactive map of the city.

I realised that a game is the perfect script/activity to support both exploration/collaboration and learning practice. So, the proposal needs to be rewritten trying to:
1. building a learning/game scenario
2. merge the game design with the learning design
3. give an idea of possible feature/interaction on the map
4. synthesise the key ideas of the scenario

Today I started reading the book by Wilson Forrest titled: City Planning: the games for human settlement.
This book target precisely the idea of learning the urban planning through games on tridimensional game boards.

Study more deeply the field of urban planning to justify the project and to build a better scenario.
Did some biographical research on the subject.

I have to find a way to create a conceptual framework where the students can compare their work and activate a cognitive process above it. For example dividing in groups and comparing the results at the end.

[analysis – actions] ——–> [synthesis – cognitive process] ———> [new step – starting over with new hypothesis]

What students need to understand from the course? What are the key ideas?
How do they usually achieve these ideas? What are the tools usually used to grasp the ideas?
Is it possible to use technology to support the cognitive processes o these topics?

> meta-cognitive / epistemological < How these ideas are related? Is there a structure among these ideas? Are there ideas which can be considered more prevalent on the others? cartography - semantic maps - geometrical relationship - urbanism

I need to restructure the proposal following the new idea: ClickTribes / MapTribes_

1. Restructure the scenario placing a picture + a map of Lausanne. for the interaction design.

2. Rationale: (1) Mobile Learning in Urban planning; (2) territories for Urban Tribes.
-> answer the question: Why would you pay for this project?

3. Research framework
. Questions
. Method
. Similar work
. Technology
. Planning and Budget
. CRAFT

4. Tools to understand the city / to decompose the map
5. Differencies with SimCity: – there is no dynamic aspect

6. possible application: 1- bridge to SimCity
2 – to do something else

ITU Telecom World 2003
Geneva, 12-18 October 2003.

Found 6 contacts point, listed in order of importance:

1. Telecom Italia Lab (+++)
Claudio Gentile
Scientific Communication Manager
claudio.gentile@tilab.com

Giovanni Ciochetto
Innovation Delivery
giovanni.ciocchetto@telecomitalia.it

Fabio Ricciato
System on Chip
fabio.ricciato@tilab.com

3. Orange (++)
sponsoring@orange.ch

4. NTT DoCoMo (++)
www.docomolabeuro.de
info@docomolab-euro.com

2. HP (++)
Jack Hazelton
Partner Programme Director
jack.hazelton@hp.com

5. Swisscom (++)
General Direction
031/342.11.11 (Bern)

6. T-Mobile (+)
Klaus Czerunski
Spokesperson T-Mobile International
+49 228 936 15520

7. SonyEriccson (+)
www.sonyericsson.com/developers/
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Found one contact for J2ME at sun:
Winston Choe
Wireless Solution Marketing Director
winston.choe@sun.com

Alexandre Pilloud is in charge of the development of the e-learning site of the course in Literature and History of the Ville in the Urbanist context: lhvpu.epfl.ch.
Some of the key ideas the students have to learn while studying the urbanist development of a city are connected to the roads, idrographic map, parcels.

RFID chips, tiny tracking devices the size of a grain of dust, can be used to secretly identify you and the things you’re carrying–right through your clothes, wallet, backpack, or purse.  Have you already taken one home with you?