WHAT’S INBOX?THIS
6 Roleplaying Personas, 6 Categories of 101 Topics, and one Make A Topic
A GAMEBOARD for creating urban design guidelines, through stakeholder consensus for your specific public spaces.
Introduction
City Making 101 is a base of knowledge for everyone to participate in the design of their cities. It is also a lively role-playing game to co-imagine, debate, then build consensus on design guidelines specific to your public space projects.
The city is co-created and is at its best when realized as a collaboration between its inhabitants, organizations, producers and professionals capturing its unique and idiosyncratic urban culture—edited, revised, built upon, started over from scratch. City making is not singularly a technocratic venture. Its form and activities generate significant meaning, memories and emotional connections for its communities, residents and visitors alike. A city’s design is a diptych of practical and emotional intelligence. Many write love letters to cities having deep interpersonal and complex relationships.
Having practiced architecture and city design since 2002 in Istanbul, a city with thousands of years of urban history, I understand that the city is a rather plastic form—for better and for worse—where architecture can be practiced as “slow urban design.” The aim is for you and your community, through vibrant debate, to generate urban design guidelines that will serve as a starting point for co-designing the city with involved, knowledgeable and empowered citizens and professionals working in concert. The focus is on actions, results, descriptive solutions and strategy, not winners and losers.
Alexis Şanal, Project Founder
RememberThe city itself is a composition and a living dynamic of many complex, interconnected topics as well as simple, familiar and discrete parts. It is the craft and poetic design of the tangible and the intangible dimensions of cities that underpin their excellence.
WELLNESS DESIGN POLICY
IMPACTS are measurable effects addressasble in the greater social good towards livable, lovable and walkable cities for all.
WELLNESS Improves the mental, health, social and/or demographic well-being of the community.
QUALITY Adds value to the social and economic stability, attracts tangible and intangible capital, engenders stewardship, and is maintained.
AESTETHICS Have a recognizable identity, is coherent and is perceived and valued as attractive to the diverse interest of residents and visitors.
SUSTAINABILITY Retain relevance in change i.e. ecological, climate, social, economic, cultural sustainability. It reduces reliance on fossil fuels and leads towards equitable and inclusive city design.
ACTIONS are the effort or expertiese required to realize urban design excellence.
DESIGN Creative intervention, crossdisciplinary knowledge, proposal of integration or scheme specificity. Expertise are urban designers, architects, landscape designers, graphic designers, service designers, industrial designers, artists, community designers.
TECHNICAL Know-how to solve or overcome a problem or info-sharing to coordinate a design. Expertise are civic engineers, structural engineers, environmental engineers, technical guides for application and procedures.
POLICY Governmental and nongovernmental strategies and targets through laws or cooperation in terms of governance, resources, and dissemination of information. It requires the expertise of economists, sociologists, lawyers, policy-makers.
BEHAVIOR Advocacy or incentives/ de-incentives to advance social habits, citizen participation or changing perceptions. It requires social entrepreneurs, communication designers and advocacy groups.
HOW TO PLAY
Describe the Design Challenge
task is to define a design challenge. This challenge can be set with the help of players. They select the neighborhood/ district for the challenge and make sure all the players are familiar with the area (if need be, walk it, take photos/notes, share information and maps with the other players).
Preferably, meet around a table with enough space for the game board and three horizontal stacks of cards for each player.
If this is the first time the group is playing, they might opt for the Compact Game.
60-CARD COMPACT GAME
For beginners: Remove cards A20-28, B12-16, C4-8, D5-9, E9-11, F 16-28 from the deck before the game.
Provide a brief (+/- 5 minute) presentation about the specific area—its history, current state, issues and future prospects—with supporting visuals.
The challenge can be as focused as a pocket park on a vacant lot or as general as solving a neighborhood trash management problem. It can look at ways to utilize your school campus in summer or to ensure quality public space in a new urban development.
To visualize and keep the focus on the design challenge, it is helpful to have images or any other relevant material visible to all throughout the game. →
Imagine The Roles
Players use the Persona Cards to guide them through this process. They come up with their personas: age, profession, character, and purpose in participating in the design challenge. They act as if they are the character and uphold their purpose throughout the game.
Take 10 minutes to familiarize yourself with your persona. Facilitator should make sure there is a reasonable balance of persona types and every player confidently knows their character’s position.
Ask each player to describe their role to the group in two sentences, with an additional sentence on how they feel about the design challenge.
Residents could be; homeowners, renters, children, baristas...
Investors could be from the public or private sector, developer, large tenat, institution...
Experts could be; architects, engineers, ecologists, economists...
Local Government could be; mayors, social services, police, maintence workers...
NGOs could be; naturalist NGOs, children with disabilities, humane society...
Start the Game
Deal the cards to each player, description side up, one by one around the table. Make sure the cards are in order.
Note that 101 cards may not be divisible equally among players; some might end up with more cards.
Players, in character and focusing on the design challenge, review the topic and description on their cards.
Separate the cards into IMPORTANT, NOT IMPORTANT or I WISH piles.
Players then put each stack, text side up, in front of them around the game board. The topics of all cards should be readable at a glance by every other player in the game.
First Round The Warm-Up
Going around the table each player presents their NOT IMPORTANT topics one-by-one. Present a topic card in one sentence then state in another sentence why they think this topic is NOT IMPORTANT, then place it topic-side-up in the center of the board.
If any other player thinks that card is IMPORTANT, they can take it and put it in their IMPORTANT or I WISH pile.
Do not go into details on cards just yet, keep first round focused on descriptions. Note that more than one player can claim one card is IMPORTANT. In that case, take a note to discuss on the next round.
When all players have presented their NOT IMPORTANT cards, all remaining cards in the center get turned art side up and stacked on the board’s NOT IMPORTANT square. →
Second Round The Discussion
Players present their IMPORTANT cards. In this round, the aim is to convince the other players of the topic’s importance.
▪ All players are encouraged to voice their thoughts if they do not agree, or only partly agree, that the topic is important or if they think it is a good idea but not relevant to this design challenge. During the discussion, every player should state if they are in favor or against the topic according to their role and the design challenge. Other players are encouraged to review the card if they find the topic unfamiliar or want any clarity before offering their point of view.
▪ If every player agrees that the topic is IMPORTANT, the card remains in the center topic side up. If someone thinks it is NOT IMPORTANT, they state their case. The other players have the opportunity to persuade the player who is in disagreement.
▪ if a topic is discussed for too long or cannot be resolved, agree to disagree and move on, placing the card in the I WISH position on the board in front of the player who is most supportive of the topic; it will be revisited in the last round. Keep the game moving! It is recommended to present by going around the table one-by-one.
When all IMPORTANT cards have been assessed, the cards that remain get turned art side up and stacked on the board’s IMPORTANT square.
Third Round The Nitty-Gritty
Each player in order puts their creative thinking into ways to get their I WISH cards moved to the IMPORTANT pile. To convince the others of their topic’s merits, players can propose policy, design, social or enforcement solutions that address the concerns of the other players. Refer to ACTIONS and IMPACTS in your arguments.
This is the opportunity for the group as a whole to find solutions that support including the remaining topics in a design guideline specific to their design challenge.
If all players can find an agreed solution or strategy, the card is noted with the yellow note card and goes into the IMPORTANT stack.
Cards in the IMPORTANT stack has to be unanimous. If there is still disagreement from any player, the card remains in the player’s I WISH pile. Collect all I WISH piles and place them in a stack, art side up, in the center circle of the board. →
FOR EXAMPLE
If someone thinks graffiti is a problem for historic buildings, you can discuss the line between vandalism and street art. Consider enforcement, creating additional surfaces for graffiti art, or even promoting a public awareness program that supports street artists and channels this creative energy into an alternative cultural movement. You can also use examples of success stories from real cities or experiences. Policy, behavior, technical and design solutions are ways to resolve disagreement. Also, new topic cards can be added like Murals or Vandalism to enhance the co-creation design guideline.
Game Finale
The Round-Up
Now all the cards should be on the board in 3 stacks:
IMPORTANT
NOT IMPORTANT
I WISH
Remove all NOT IMPORTANT cards and place them back to the box.
Starting at the board’s upper left corner, place the IMPORTANT cards, topic side up (A, B, C, D, E, F), in columns from left to right.
Be sure each topic’s number and name is visible.
Next, do the same with the I WISH cards, placing them in columns to the right of the IMPORTANT cards. Then place, at the bottom of each column, any notes that came up throughout the game which was not included in the cards.
Your team can now take a photograph of your design challenge’s collectively-agreed-to design guidelines.
Wrap-up Activities
LOOK-AROUND—ask players to go around the room and look at the other team’s results. The players can discuss the differences in results and the ways the various roles may have influenced the city design strategies. Or if you are a single team, try a different design challenge and different roles and see the results.
SHARE—Each team can present the most debated topic, the topic that provoked the most curiosity/ inspiration/learning, and the topic that was the easiest to decide.
PROPOSE—Each team could propose a new topic(s) that would capture their discussion but was not in the base deck. Share with us @ imaginableguidelines.org so we can add to future editions.
NOTES FOR BEGINNER PLAYERS —
Use a 66 playing card deck
For players first experiencing city design topics and/or guidelines a compact deck will be more engaging. The 66 card deck is recommended for high school students, citizen initiatives and players whom want to play with a small group of friends.
— Select ALL of A Physical Elements and F Vitality cards as well as the first SEVEN cards of B Ecology. Time permitting; add C TechnologyInnovation, D Social Economy and E Governance cards after the second round. Then repeat the first and
second rounds before starting the last round. The suggested BREAK for introducing more cards is good timing for splitting between two class periods or a morning and afternoon session.
— We have observed that first time players need more time for different reasons. They are more likely to need to read the full text and citizen players often listen more intently to understand why the other roles find topics important or not important. Also, they may feel overwhelmed by too much information.
NOTES FOR ADVANCED PLAYERS
— Use in professional or university city-design context
Use the full deck for players who are university students in urban studies or architecture in +3 year studios and design professionals with municipal teams and NGOs already engaged in city design. If university students are in the 1st or 2nd year or other departments, we suggest starting with the Beginner Player Recommendations outlined above.
— Use blank topic cards to add new topics, not in the deck, as needed for your design challenge. Many design challenges will require additional city design topics.
— For very advanced players, start clustering and re-organizing the design guideline by priority of topics, clustering new categories, or re-writing specific topics per your
Co-Designing Livable, Lovable, Walkable Cities
Now you have experienced the process of generating a design guideline. The topic cards have much more information on the specifics of the design topic. You can also do further research on the topics and investigate different best-practice solutions or strategies. You are ready to reach out to the neighborhood organizations, local authorities and design professionals that can help you realize actionable solutions. You can now use your knowledge of city design topics to improve something in your neighborhood, prioritize the needs of the area for a new project or feel empowered to actively participate in the debates of your city.
design challenges’ context needs and considerations.
— For city-design and professional community development uses, players can play their own roles to realize a Shared City Design Guideline specific to their requirements.
NOTES FOR GAME FACILITATORS
— Minimum 12+ player parallel play.
— Up to 60-80 Players works well with 10 tables for 96 players use 12 tables. We do not advise to go beyond this number of parallel plays.
— Asess if your players are beginner or advanced players.
— Set-up tables and the separation of the playing cards prior to starting or players arriving.
— In big groups and community meetings place the visuals so all players have access throughout the play. The moderator/facilitator
can pre-set the multiple tables with the game boards and deck of cards in its circle.
— Keep everyone focused on the design challenge at hand and his or her specific role. Players easily get lost in trying to solve the problems of the city as a whole, which may distract them from the design challenge at hand as well as reaching any consensus.
— A good moment to take a class break, coffee/lunch break is before starting the last round.
— If your goal is community development, citizen participation or professional use, we recommend giving the last round a full 45 minutes to an hour to reach new design guideline proposals, new topic proposals and allow for a solid discussion of the more subtle and problematic aspects of the design challenge.
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ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
ADA Americans with Disabilities Act
CAD ‘kaad’ computer-aided design
CO2 carbon dioxide
DIY do-it-yourself
HVAC H’vack’ heating, ventilation and air-conditioning
ISO ‘eesoh’ International Organization for Standardization km Kilometers
LDU localized development unit
NRC noise reduction coefficient
NGO nongovernmental organization
SRI solar reflectance index
UN United Nations
WHO ‘Hoo’ World Health Organization
We make playful tools for city making driven by a belief that if we want people to participate, we need fun, engaging, memorable and accessible ways to learn about urban design.
FOR YOU
Make your own cards. Our team is here to make more topics, categories and playful tools specific to your needs. Do not hesitate to reach out to our development team at @CityMaking.101 or imaginableguidelines @gmail.com.
VISUAL CULTURE
All images have been created on Discord MidJourney and ChatGPT in the spirit of the city making visual legacy, an aesthetic and form of collective imagination. The visuals are curated to be clearly AI generated and represent the diversity of influences in the canon of urban design, representations of cities, cultural production influencers and timely emergent practices.
CONTRIBUTORS
This content is possible because of the expertise and knowledge of many people who were asked to contribute and write topics for the Istanbulspecific edition in 2018. In city editions, our aim is to hear specific voices and perspectives of the professionals, experts, academics, practitioners and organizations that make that city today. In this edition, the texts are for you to reimagine your own voice and adapt cards for your public projects, communities and cities.
PROJECT FOUNDER
OPEN URBAN PRACTICE
openurbanpractice.com
Project Founder
Alexis Şanal
Researcher
Semra Horuz
Project Coordinators
Dilşad Aladağ
Muhammad Abdullatif
Ulufer Çelik
Ahmet F. Yenice
Interns
Julie Brun, Keimpke Zigterman
Graphic Design
Okay Karadayılar
Visual Curators using Midjourney and ChatGPT
Metehan Özcan, Selva Gürdoğan, Esra Kahveci, Alexis Şanal
Illustrations
Mrinë Godanca
Editor
Erica Olsen
ORO Editions
Publishers of Architecture, Art, and Design
Gordon Goff: Publisher
www.oroeditions.com info@oroeditions.com
Published by ORO Editions
Copyright © 2024 Alexis Sanal and ORO Editions.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying of microfilming, recording, or otherwise (except that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the US Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publisher.
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Topic contributors for 2018 Istanbul Edition—Alison B. Snyder (F2), Andrew Jones (A19), Andy LaRaia (A27, F12, F21), Ansel Mullins (F23), Arzu Erturan (F4), Arzu Nuhoğlu (B9), Candan Türkkan (F8, F09, F22), Deniz Aslan (B2, B3), Elif Fettahoğlu (F28), Elif Kılıç (F17), Erdem Üngür (E5, E6), Eren Tekin (F7, F11, F16), Erenalp Büyüktopçu (F1), Gökhan Karakuş (A24, B15), Görsev Argın (F18), Hendrik Bohle (A26, F26), Irem Coşkun (F20), Irmak Turan (B6, B12), Istanbul Running Forces (B14), İyiOfis (A25, F15), Linda Shahinian (General Editor). Maura Kelly (A17), Merve Akdağ (A7), Merve Bedir (F24, F25), Nazlı Tümerdem (A8), Nextistanbul (E10), Onurcan Çakır (F20), Özlem Ünsal (E03), Özlem Yalım (A18), Samarjit Ghosh (F19), Sera Tolgay (B10, E5), Serhan Ada (A22, E11), Sivil Yaya Girişimi (A15), Sokak Bizim (A1), Urban Tank (F05), Zeynep Dal (B8), Zeynep Turan Hoffman (F10).
Chief Editor: Alexis Şanal
Book Design: Okay Karadayılar
Project Manager: Jake Anderson
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First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-961856-00-4
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