New Proposals for Sustainable Design: The Imitation Game as an Experience of Shared Co-design

Abstract

The paper is related to the research The Imitation Game financed by the Politecnico di Milano. The Imitation Game is a serious game to drive design decision at urban scale versus sustainable scenarios, and it is currently under testing with the students of the Construction and Sustainability Design Studio. The hypothesis is to make the game available for citizens and designers in a coming future. The aim of the research was to define a simplified procedure to roughly estimate the effect of the behavior of people in a given area in terms of land necessary to support their lifestyle. To calculate the amount of land required, all the consumptions have been converted into biomass (wood, biofuel, food, …) and then into land surface to produce such biomass. Each player plays referring to a different census section of the town and has an amount of money related to the consumptions in the census section (heating, transportation, electricity, etc.). Players have the ability to modify their behavior that reflects people lifestyle, which means that any change in the player’s personal behavior affects the results of the play, as if a percentage of the population adopted that behavior. The Imitation Game was structured as a board game in which players (students) can gain extra points performing specific activities (i.e., reading books on the topic, performing activities), can play technological choices (available as cards in a deck of cards) and can modify their behavior to affect the final results. A Web site with the rules and examples for the Imitation Game has been prepared for the students.