Augmented Urban Planning: Serious Gaming for Fair Participation
Affinity with (or deep interest in) [board] games, serious games, game theory, decision analysis, [computer] graphics, and mathematics would be helpful.
The decisions made on the spatial configurations and distributions in the built environments (urban or rural developments) directly affect the environment as well as the interests of various actors and stakeholders. The project aims to provide mechanisms for involving different stakeholders in spatial decision-making processes and facilitating their negotiations through simulation games (physical game boards, digital serious games, or ideally physical-digital hybrids) equipped with simulation-based ex-ante assessment mechanisms, and Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methods.
The project will aim to develop a serious gaming methodology [5], [7], [8], [9],[ 10], [11] and implement it as a multi-purpose planning support system (PSS) [15] to augment [1] or enhance the collective intelligence of the participating human actors with the transparency of the simulation-based ex-ante impact assessment methods [13]. The methodology is expected to be developed and formulated conceptually and mathematically. The digital implementation (if necessary or desired) is expected to be carried out in Python. The focal point can be shifted towards the mathematical/theoretical aspects or the physical and narrative-based implementation and interfaces for facilitating participation. In either case, a thorough understanding of planning approaches, design games, and serious games for planning needs to be obtained through a brief and targeted literature review.
Depending on the chosen challenge, various methodological frameworks from graph theory, fuzzy logic, spatial multi-criteria decision analysis [16] &[17], game theory,, linear algebra [5]&[6], and artificial neural networks [6] may be exploited to devise a methodology for participatory strategic planning [1] &[15].
[1] Azadi, Shervin, Dena Kasraian, Pirouz Nourian, and P.J.V. Wesemael. “Augmented Urban Planning: A Framework for Strategic Urban Planning.” In Proceedings of CUPUM 2023 - The 18th International Conference on Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management, 2023. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371865347_Augmented_Urban_Planning_A_Framework_for_Strategic_Urban_Planning.
[2] Osborne, M. J., & Rubinstein, A. (1994). A course in game theory. MIT press.
[3] Batty, M. (2013). The new science of cities. MIT press.
[4] Sugumaran, R., & Degroote, J. (2010). Spatial decision support systems: principles and practices. Crc Press.
[5] Nourian, Pirouz, Shervin Azadi, Nan Bai, Bruno de Andrade, Nour Abu Zaid, Samaneh Rezvani, and Ana Pereira Roders. “EquiCity Game: A Mathematical Serious Game for Participatory Design of Spatial Configurations.” arXiv, September 23, 2023. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2309.13396.
[6] Nourian, Pirouz, Shervin Azadi, Roy Uijtendaal, and Nan Bai. “Augmented Computational Design: Methodical Application of Artificial Intelligence in Generative Design.” In Artificial Intelligence in Performance-Driven Design: Theories, Methods, and Tools Towards Sustainability, edited by Narjes Abbasabadi and Mehdi Ashayeri. Wiley, 2023. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.09243.
[7] Sanoff, H. (1999). Community participation methods in design and planning. John Wiley & Sons. [URL]
[8] Poplin, Alenka. “Playful Public Participation in Urban Planning: A Case Study for Online Serious Games.” Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 36, no. 3 (2012): 195–206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2011.10.003.
[9] Sanoff, Henry. Design Games. William Kaufmann Inc., 1978. [URL]
[10] Ampatzidou, Cristina, Katharina Gugerell, Teodora Constantinescu, Oswald Devisch, Martina Jauschneg, and Martin Berger. “All Work and No Play? Facilitating Serious Games and Gamified Applications in Participatory Urban Planning and Governance.” Urban Planning 3, no. 1 (2018): 34–46. [URL]
[11] Bai, Nan, Shervin Azadi, Pirouz Nourian, and Ana Pereira Roders. “Decision-Making as a Social Choice Game.” Proceedings of the 38th eCAADe Conference 2 (2020): 10. [URL]
[12] Nourian, Pirouz, Shervin Azadi, and Robin Oval. “Generative Design in Architecture: From Mathematical Optimization to Grammatical Customization.” In Computational Design and Digital Manufacturing, edited by Panagiotis Kyratsis, Athanasios Manavis, and J. Paulo Davim. Springer International Publishing, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21167-6_1. [URL]
[13] Nourian, Pirouz. “Augmented Spatial Planning.” KIVI Innovation Event: Digital Twins in the Energy Transition, University of Twente, June 25, 2025.[] https://doi.org/10.3990/1.9789402816037.
[15] Champlin, Carissa J, Johannes Flacke, and Geert Pmr Dewulf. “A Game Co-Design Method to Elicit Knowledge for the Contextualization of Spatial Models.” Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science 49, no. 3 (2022): 1074–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/23998083211041372.
[16] Soman, Aditya, Azadi, Shervin, and Nourian, Pirouz. “DeciGenArch: A Generative Design Methodology for Architectural Configuration via Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis.” Proceedings of eCAADe 2022, Education and research in Computer Aided Architectural Design in Europe, 2022, forthcoming. https://doi.org/10.52842/conf.ecaade.2022.1.4
[17] Pfeffer, Karin. “Integrating Spatio-Temporal Environmental Models for Planning Ski Runs.” Dissertation, Utrecht University, 2003. https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/561.
A challenge from a particular urban context can be chosen to be worked out. The context can either be with a municipality in the Netherlands and related to the Omgevingswet, in which case the utmost utilization of open geospatial data of the Netherlands will be expected; or, a low-tech context in the global south, for which additional challenges in preparation of a minimal digital city model by using earth observation data from ESA or DLR are to be tackled.