Gamification in urban design for upgrading the informal settlements (open public space) in African neighborhoods

The city and architecture of today and the future will face and are facing the challenge of innovation. Simultaneously, Informal African neighborhoods; present challenges to human sustainable development and equity, safety, environmental quality, and resiliency issues. As ICT becomes pervasive, architects have to rethink rules for communication between the citizen and physical urban space. Accordingly, the digital participation integration in specific Serious Games can be a tool to empower slum residents and engage communities to participate in settlement upgrading design based on SDG 11. Thus, the proposed paper will present an overview of the participatory gamification technology involved in civic engagement in informal African neighborhoods that fosters engagement and democratization. The research reaches from Literature review on some Gaming tools and participatory process Articles. Moreover, to achieve the goals, a detailed study on; authors and the extensive research of HABITAT on informal settlements and the United Nations, qualitative data analysis methods to organize and interpret the collected research findings. This analysis showed that Gaming tools and Gamification as a methodology; helps to; empower any residents with different knowledge to participate in settlement upgrading design in specific Minecraft can foster engagement, make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable with communities of different ages and specifically women and children without any expertise and knowledge.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

IDEAS: Interactive Database for Experimental Architecture and Spatial Practices

The interface of science and technology has become a fruitful transdisciplinary research field for spatial practices. To address this hybridization of space-related research, it is fundamental to ask what kind of practices are emerging within this context. To promote easy access and the dissemination of methodologies applied in innovative experimental spatial practices, the present study proposes the creation of a web-based Interactive Database for Experimental Architecture and Spatial Practices, IDEAS. Therefore, we will scope, observe, examine, and classify the digital cultural landscape in the 1960-2020 period. This paper describes the methodology applied to develop IDEAS.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Digitalization within the informal settlements. Participatory technologies in design for upgrading the informality in Maputo, Mozambique

Participatory Technologies in design offers an opportunity for architects to re-design cities and find new opportunities, in different scales, with their citizens, to create new economic, social, environmental values and provide better public realms and empowering the community by engaging them in participatory actions, aiming at the sustainability of urban public space and rapidly suppress its insufficiencies. Accordingly, the city and architecture of the future face the challenge of innovation in an evolution that involves society, economy, environment, etc. But what about the informal settlements which are dealing with socio-economic and environmental issues? These neighborhoods present the greatest challenges to human sustainable development and equity, safety, environmental quality, and resiliency central to the New Urban Agenda. As information and communication technology (ICT) becomes pervasive, the architect has to rethink the rules for communication between the citizen and physical urban space for adapting to the period in which we are living in. Over the last few decades, an increasingly collaborative work developed among spatial practitioners such as architects, urban planners, artists and, media designers; has produced a particular landscape of projects that engage information technology as a catalytic tool for interactions in the physical urban space. ICT, mobiles, applications, and digital technologies are tools to empower slum residents and their youth to have greater control over their lives. Communities and prosperity through access to information and knowledge are going to be more engaged and empowered. Basically, to develop a public realm or neighborhood or a barrio, the first tool is data. Architects and decision-makers will be the data users. Moreover, citizens will be the Data collectors and, in this system, they can get aware of individual impacts on themselves and the whole. Enabling communities to participate in settlement planning and upgrading including, the management of new infrastructure undoubtedly, requires action at the political level but, we cannot hesitate architect’s role to society aim to provide lasting solutions to specific needs and, the active participation of the community lends these additional values. In this context, the proposed paper will present an overview of the participatory digital technologies involved in civic engagement in informal cities in Africa. This analysis is essential to define the application of spatial acupunctures or plug-ins in the public realm and urban environment to upgrade the informality in Maputo, Mozambique.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

UAIG (Urban Areas of Illegal Genesis) - (re) living to (re) integrate

This ongoing research intends to develop a strategy for the (re) qualification of the public space in the UAIG (Urban Areas of Illegal Genesis), through the introduction of an intervention methodology – collaborative participatory processes. The strategies of intervention in the public space have launched new challenges to research in architecture. In a demanding society with strong participatory and collaborative citizenship, public space increasingly assumes an important role in urban practices. The lack of public space in areas of illegal genesis in Metropolitan Area of Lisbon (MLA), shaped the PhD research question: How public space make UAIG ́s (re) living to (re) integrate it in Lisbon Metropolitan Area dynamics? Participation means the collaboration of people pursuing objectives that they themselves have defined. A public space is one which, in its design and in its use, stimulates a sense of belonging to a wider community beyond the bounds of the strictly private sphere. It is, then, a scenario that fosters contract between difference people mixing uses and meeting place for individual and collective interests. The answer is to adopt methods and instruments that allow the creation of a methodology for the analysis of a great transversality of scales – territory, neighbourhoods and public space. This research aims to contribute to a generic model of good practices applicable to any process of requalification of the urban space of the UAIG.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Formal city vs informal city: from the clandestine neighbourhoods to the concept of UAIG (urban areas of illegal genesis)

Over time, the definitions of formal and informal city have been changed or acquired different meanings in the various fields of human activity. Since the 1950s, the industrialisation and changes in rural practices caused an accelerating mass migration of people from rural areas to major cities, which gave rise to numerous informal settlements on the peripheries of the cities. A large rural migration flows to cities searching for better living conditions. The main goal of this paper is to present the transformations that have occurred in the territory, with a focus on the peripheries of the city of Lisbon with the constructions of clandestine neighbourhoods, demonstrating through a mapping, the evolution of these informal territories in the formal city, to assess how the UAIG (Urban Areas of Illegal Genesis) developed and influenced the transformations and visions of the formal city, and the relationship that people have with the place they inhabit.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Generative solutions: adaptation and flexibilization in housing as a qualified social response

Housing for all is back on the international agenda. The economic crisis forces researchers and architects to rethink the concept of living and adopt more flexible housing design strategies as an alternative to typologies that impose rules of coexistence and do not reflect the social dynamics of a community. The introduction of rules-based housing design strategies allows the implementation of more dynamic processes. This ongoing research is a reflection on the potential of digital tools to develop spatial and formal parameters based on analysis of flexible housing models. This paper presents the initial phase of the research.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Local partnerships and urban governance: The case of Lisbon

Collaborative forms of governance in urban regeneration are increasingly gaining ground in cities around the world, contributing to the active engagement of citizens in decision-making processes that affect their neighbourhoods and lives. In some cases, municipalities embrace local grassroot initiatives, as for example with the implementation of participatory budgets, enabling active citizens to creatively invent ways to regain and co-manage the urban commons. In a similar vision, the Department of Housing and Local Development of the Municipality of Lisbon launched in 2011 a participatory budget program, namely BIP/ZIP, to annually fund bottom-up initiatives led by local partnerships in priority neighbourhoods that enable responses to social and territorial emergencies. The aim of this research is to investigate the matrix of local partnerships that have been formulated throughout the eleven years of BIP/ZIP and understand their dynamic role in the transformation of the urban governance in the city of Lisbon.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Interactive algorithm for generating accurate as-built plans by building owners

Mass Customization systems in architecture have yet to adequately address the problem of capturing physical context, a fundamental aspect of dealing with building renovation, which has limited their scope of application. Previous research has demonstrated that existing methods of capturing as-built plans of rooms by non-expert users do not produce sufficiently accurate results for digital fabrication. The present paper reports on research into the development of an algorithm for semi-automated survey of convex or non-convex rooms by building owners. The improved workflow is tested by expert and non-expert users in a to-be renovated building and the results are compared with existing methods of survey.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Triangulation algorithms for generating as-Is floor plans

Precisely capturing context is a fundamental first step in dealing with built environments. Previous research has demonstrated that existing methods for generating as-is floor plans of non-orthogonal rooms by non-expert users do not produce geometrically accurate results. The present paper proposes the adaptation of empirical triangulation methods, traditionally used by architects and other building professionals in surveying building interiors, to the development of semi-automated workflow of room survey. A set of triangulation algorithms that automate the plan drawing stage are presented.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Kinetic origami surfaces: from simulation to fabrication

On nowadays social, technological and economic context everything changes constantly so there is the persistent need to adapt at all levels. This research defends that Architecture should do the same through the use of kinetic and interactive buildings, or elements in a building. These elements should allow the building to adapt to changing needs and conditions. This article describes the current state of an ongoing research that proposes the use of kinetic Rigid Origami foldable surfaces to be used as roofs for spaces with big spans and the practical contribution that the Design Studio Surfaces INPLAY has brought to it