links for 2009-10-28

Bleeck­er and Nova argue for an alter­na­tive to the syn­chro­nous, real-time city. I can def­i­nite­ly get behind the idea that there is more to city expe­ri­ence than the hygien­ic, com­pu­ta­tion­al mod­el that is cur­rent­ly being imposed by tech­nol­o­gists. Also, the exam­ples they show from their own prac­tice are inspir­ing works that demon­strate the val­ue of think­ing through making.

An inter­est­ing take by urban­ists on urban games: “The big issue of urban games is the sud­den appear­ance of unex­pect­ed actions with­in an urban con­text. The pub­lic space is reset and rein­ter­pret­ed as a play­ground for adults. The dis­turb­ing role that those games have on ‘nor­mal’ space use, seems to be the main pur­pose. In the con­text of the flex­i­ble city the games show the need of anoth­er per­cep­tion of space. Organ­is­ers must be sick of for­mal city forms and leg­isla­tive terms of use. The city has to become fun again, not as a play­ing field for civ­il ser­vants mak­ing plans, but for peo­ple using it.” The whole blog seems worth fol­low­ing actu­al­ly, if you’re inter­est­ed in new forms of city planning.

A Dutch arti­cle on the state of the seri­ous games indus­try. A pret­ty decent overview, with just a few minor inac­cu­ra­cies: Sur­geons who prac­tice using Trau­ma Cen­ter on the Wii? Not like­ly. Also, it’s a shame the researcher of TU Delft who is quot­ed says games need to have appeal­ing visu­al design, but neglects to men­tion the impor­tance of prop­er game play design…