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Two recently released video games are updating the SimCity model to better incorporate the complex relationship humans and cities have to nature and its precious resources. The first, Islanders, has users generate a city on an island with a limited amount of resources. Users are given a set... View full entry
Along the way, the games have introduced millions of players to the joys and frustrations of zoning, street grids and infrastructure funding — and influenced a generation of people who plan cities for a living. For many urban and transit planners, architects, government officials and activists, “SimCity” was their first taste of running a city. — Los Angeles Times
"It was the first time they realized that neighborhoods, towns and cities were things that were planned, and that it was someone's job to decide where streets, schools, bus stops and stores were supposed to go," writes Jessica Roy for the Los Angeles Times. Happen to look for a real life urban... View full entry
While normally used by online gamers to create a generated world for exploration and combat, the world-building computer game Minecraft has been noted for its architectural capabilities. BlockWorks, a design studio in the UK, uses the game as a design tool to create materials for marketing... View full entry
The following examples show how gamespace can become the stage for a social, political and ethical critique: from a nondescript city under the effect of gentrification, to a barren luxury estate and a set of playful and absurd buildings for London. These examples suggest that, rather than allowing architects to indulge Piranesi’s power-hungry ideal, games could work as a means of showing how dysfunctional reality really is. — Failed Architecture
In her essay Gamespace Urbanism: City-Building Games and Radical Simulations for Failed Architecture, Federica Buzzi looks at a new crop of indie city-planning computer games that promise fresh potential for simulation and exploration of radical urban scenarios — and subsequent social... View full entry
You don't need a blacklight for this one: Morphogenesis, a full-length virtual reality experience that transports the viewer through elaborate, thrill-inducing shapes, will definitely take you out of this world, at least for a few minutes. The geometrically derived immersive spaces it generates... View full entry
space and building costs are just as much of guiding principles in designing real prisons as they are in Prison Architect. [...]
"Prisoners themselves are generally not included in the conversation where the prison construction budget is allocated to different priorities, so their needs come last and cell size is generally set at the legal minimum," Sperry said. "The legal standard only bars 'cruel or unusual punishment'—a cell can be punitively small as long as it doesn't cross that limit."
— motherboard.vice.com
More on the discussion around prison architecture:How one California prison is betting on architecture to decrease recidivism ratesArchitecture of correction: Rikers IslandThe NYT on prison architecture and ethicsHow Prison Architecture Can Transform Inmates' LivesADPSP and the Architecture of... View full entry
Cities are everywhere. Billions of us live in them, and many of us think we could do a better job than the planners. But for the past 26 years dating back to the original SimCity, we've mostly been proving that idea false. [...]
And now, here, I'm going to take you on a whirlwind tour through the history of the city-building genre—from its antecedents to the hot new thing.
— arstechnica.com
Related on Archinect:The issue of homelessness in SimCityHow video game engines may influence the future of architecture (and everything else)Three guiding principles for a fine fake metropolis View full entry
