Games are an ancient kind of interactive system. Traditional games like Go or chess are already a kind of computer, machines for creating and storing numerical states. But it is only in the twentieth century that a really powerful kind of computation comes into being, one capable of forming an abstract plane of measurement and control which subordinates physical things to its logics.
If we accept that the dominant structure of the 21st century is the complex dynamic system, and that engagement with interactive media can help foster 'systems thinking', an essential new literacy in this new century that complements, rather than displaces older forms of literacy including visual, textual, and oral literacies, then the conceptual structure of the game might become a useful instrument for understanding many aspects of our contemporary world. Including architecture.
In this project, an existing work of architecture is analyzed through the conceptual structure of a board game. Working in teams, students selected one of the following precedent works, and proposed the 'board game version' of the spatial, social, and tectonic workings of it, expressed through the rules, setting, and gameplay of an interactive game.
There's more!
Some other projects from this same class have been posted, as well as some interesting student work from this same year.