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Learning Urban Sustainability by Playing

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Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2023 Workshops (ICCSA 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14108))

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Abstract

Sustainability and the concept of sustainable development are currently adopted as a founding paradigm of global, national and regional development strategies. As such, they necessarily permeate new visions of urban development as well, leading to reflections of economic, environmental and social sustainability in urban planning and design practices. In this context, the paper aims to reflect on the capability and usefulness of Serious Games in conveying knowledge with respect to the development of sustainable cities to students, as future planners and architects in urban areas. Such games are part of the several participatory approaches and models of urban innovation and planning and have an explicitly educational purpose with respect to tackling complex problems. Given their increasing application in the field of sustainability, but their limited use in the context of sustainable cities, this paper explores two serious games (Urbax and urbEN), developed in urban and territorial settings within two different European projects, to reflect on their potential capability to convey specific ways of action and knowledge with respect to the issues considered in Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG11) of Agenda 2030. The analysis allows observing that although the two games were not initially designed to align with specific SDG11 targets or convey information on sustainable cities, both demonstrate the potential capability in spreading specific knowledge for urban sustainability.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning (DIST), Politecnico di Torino, Viale Mattioli 39, 10125, Turin, Italy

    Isabella M. Lami, Francesca Abastante, Marika Gaballo, Beatrice Mecca & Elena Todella

Authors
  1. Isabella M. Lami
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  2. Francesca Abastante
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  3. Marika Gaballo
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  4. Beatrice Mecca
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  5. Elena Todella
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Beatrice Mecca .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy

    Osvaldo Gervasi

  2. University of Basilicata, Potenza, Italy

    Beniamino Murgante

  3. University of Minho, Braga, Portugal

    Ana Maria A. C. Rocha

  4. University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy

    Chiara Garau

  5. University of Basilicata, Potenza, Italy

    Francesco Scorza

  6. University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, USA

    Yeliz Karaca

  7. Polytechnic University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Carmelo M. Torre

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Lami, I.M., Abastante, F., Gaballo, M., Mecca, B., Todella, E. (2023). Learning Urban Sustainability by Playing. In: Gervasi, O., et al. Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2023 Workshops. ICCSA 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14108. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37117-2_32

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37117-2_32

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