Abstract:

The application of Gamification strategies [1] to the teaching and development of architectural projects, establishing a relationship of similarity between the profession of the architect and the game mechanics, opens a new way to connect students and professors in the learning process.

The project called "The Game of the City", proposes the construction of an imaginary city. Students and teaching team have to carry out a collaborative project capable of defining the final configuration of it, both in plans and in a physical model, as the sum of individual and group projects. The ludic will serve as stimulus and motivation for the participants, while generating some regulated conditions [2]

The basic objectives pursued by this proposal are listed below:
1. Incorporate the playful part of the game in higher education, so that concepts associated by the students and the teaching team to moments of leisure and fun, are related to the capacity for innovation and estrangements typical of the architectural discipline.
2. Create a metaphor of the real construction of the urban environment. The stages proposed in the game are similar to frequent situations in which the architect must propose solutions, responding to legal, functional and design requirements, until achieving its final goal.
3. Its development implies a collaborative work with different agents, which will be reflected in the classroom through activities and group dynamics that favor the appearance of roles between each of the members of the teams.
4. Show the methodological tools of the architectural project applied throughout the different phases of the game, so that both students and teaching team are aware of when and how they have been implemented.
5. Learning as a novel, unpredictable experience, in which the rules of the game may lead to unexpected options. That is, the students learning and the teaching team re-learning.

Teaching how to create architectural projects should favor the application of boosts that improve creativity. The repetition of tested pedagogical methods hinders motivation in the classroom. For this reason, this project seeks to establish an innovative framework for action, creating the proper conditions to produce surprising and unknown architectural projects.

The adoption of different roles in the classroom, and the achievement of both individual and collective objectives, the need to solve unexpected problems that occur in the course of the application of surprise elements, as well as other game mechanics, serve to establish a layout similar to the reality in which many agents and external situations force the architect to adapt his first proposal [3].

The project aims to investigate Gamification activities as an adequate tool for teaching the subject of architectural design, being an alternative teaching model to the existing ones, but compatible with others already implemented and consolidated. It will try to establish strategies and activities capable of being applied in other departments and educational centers.

References:
[1] J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens. A study of the play-element in culture. Routledge & Kegan Paul, (1949).
[2] R. Koster, A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Paraglyph Press, (2004)
[3] G. Zichermann, Gamification by Design. Engaging Media Inc., (2013)

Keywords:

Gamification, Experiential learning, Flipped classroom, Game, Motivation.