Palimpsestuous design: Playing with architecture Paula Craft-Pegg University of Portsmouth, UK “The contrast between play and seriousness is always fluid. The inferiority of play is continually being offset by the corresponding superiority of its seriousness. Play turns to seriousness and seriousness to play. Play may rise to heights of beauty and sublimity that leave seriousness far beneath.” – Huizinga, Homo Ludens (1938).
INTRODUCTION Play of light, play of shadow, play of architecture… the role of play is part of our enculturation, central to our development as children, and forms a part of our enjoyment of spaces and places throughout our lives. Curiosity, risk and participation are part of this play, structured by the rules of games - from the physical and digital through to the academic lens of ludic architecture. Game design is based on the key principles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, with objectives, activities and accomplishments. Given the complexity of architectural education, and the palimpsest of influence and experience embedded in every aspect of the profession, this paper will explore how we can use game design pedagogy as a lens to potentially transform architectural education and practice, and as a tool to encourage curiosity and risk, to educate and inform. A brief summary of key play and game design principles will be used a framework to discuss some historic and contemporary examples of projects for in studio and professional practice. Why is this important? Because most of our students will have played more games, and specifically video games, than we can imagine. They have a different framework for learning, and through playing games - take risks, receive immediate feedback, and rewards. What does this mean for us as educators? If you begin playing games, following the same principles of design, from the age of six, and continue to play them, more and more and more… the principles of game play can be formative. Recent research, but the UK Education charity Nesta, suggests that game play and game design can both work as teaching tools. Case studies conducted by Nesta, demonstrate the design of games help develop creative and critical thinking, and stimulate higher functioning skills. Critical thinking is developed through the critique of existing and peer developed games, collaborative skills are enhanced when working in pairs, and research skills are developed through the both the type of game and game content and topic, creativity skills in the design, and problem solving skills in working out how to make a game more challenging (Ho, 2013).