Game.UP – Gamification in Urban Planning

Gamificaiton has proven a successful tool in many fields including marketing, health, or education. In gamification, elements of games design are used to increase motivation and participation, to strengthen trust, encourage community building and promote efficacy, to crowd-source social information or generate design variants. However, as with other technologies, gamification must be considered holistically and research is only just beginning to understanding the complex workings and effects when using it.

In the Game.UP (Gamification as a Communication Tool in Urban Planning) research project at the Technical University of Munich, the use and potentials of gamification in planning communication are being investigated. The focus lies on communication challenges within public participation between different stakeholders where issues such as noise reduction or tailoring information, among other aspects, are being explored. Insights into the theoretical foundation of gamification research in both planning and a wider context, as well as initial findings resulting from prototype testing within the research project will be presented within this talk.

About the speaker

Sarah Jenney studied architecture at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) where she graduated in 2016 and is presently writing her doctoral dissertation on the use and potentials of gamification in architectural and urban planning communication within the context of the interdisciplinary research project, Game.UP. Her research comprises of both a theoretical basis and practical approaches including stakeholder interviews and workshops, as well as the development of interactive prototypes within student courses. Ms Jenney’s teaching and research focus lie in information visualisation, planning communication, gamification, and the interface between physical models and digital content; and she has technical experience as an architect and project manager in the housing industry.