Towards a Hyper-diverse Town Center: Implementing a game approach for public realm and placemaking of Hackney Central

Games have served as tools for research, design, teaching, and learning processes, the development of the games can be intended to serve a singular or a multimodal purpose. Clark (1970) defined games as “reduced to its formal essence, a game is an activity among two or more independent decision-makers seeking to achieve their objectives in the same limiting context”. Here, several important aspects of games are mentioned, especially for games that involve multiplayers engaged in decision-making towards meeting an objective in a given context. This research is focused on the potential of serious games involving the participation of end-users to meet a design objective by integrating user-generated spatial configurations in urban regeneration strategies in the context of London Hackney Central’s neighbourhoods. The significance of participation translates into the context, as the rapid gentrification poses documented threat to existing socio-economic relations, social security, and income generation means for low-income dwellers. The research focuses on developing an innovative method for participatory design with the planners and local residents that allows end-users to layout their preferred spatial configuration following a set of game rules. The game and the play process were demonstrated by using participatory trails. The outcome will be evaluated and presented followed by findings and recommendations for further studies and application.