Design Through Play: The Archispiel Experience

Authors

  • Juan Elvira Peña Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid
  • Roger Paez La Salle BCN Elisava

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5821/jida.2019.8349

Abstract

This paper focuses on the implications and potentialities of playful practices and game formats as innovative teaching methods in architecture, urban planning and, more generally, design. It provides a very brief account of serious games pioneers and the current state of the art of what the authors call ‘design through play’. It then presents one game-based format, Archispiel, designed by the authors in 2015, along with a case study of its use in a classroom context, Magaluf Reset. The exercise, drawing on traditional war games and diplomacy games designed from the 1950s onwards, combines strategic negotiation with the use of chance to produce unexpected effects. Consequently, rather than solutions answering to a predefined brief, the results are quite literally the outcome of an exploratory and open-ended design logic. The experience shows how design through play offers a rich array of explorative possibilities not afforded by conventional design practices.

Author Biographies

Juan Elvira Peña, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid

Graduated architect from ETSAM (1997, Honors). Master’s Degree in Advanced Architectural Design at Columbia University of New York (MSAAD ’00), under the Fundación La Caixa fellowship program. Ph.D. Degree in Architecture from Madrid Polytechnic University (2014, Summa Cum laude). The manuscript, entitled “Ghost Architecture. Space and the production of Ambient Effects” has been awarded 1st mention at Arquia/Tesis foundation in 2015 and at the Bienal Iberoamericana de Arquitectura 2016.

Juan Elvira Peña has a wide experience in education as Design Studio teacher, with more than ten years at ETSAM, where he is Associated Professor. He is currently Invited Professor at Berkeley university (2019). He is also MPAA professor (Postgraduate Master of Advanced Architectural Projects, since 2016) and MACA (Master de Comunicación Arquitectónica, 2015). He is also Urban Workshop teacher at the IE University (since 2013). He was studio professor in the University of Alicante (Escuela de Arquitectura Universidad de Alicante, 2001-2002) where he presented his research “Tactical Spaces” at Archilab’02 forum in Orleáns (France). He is also invited lecturer in diverse national and international universities (ESARQ Universidad Internacional de Cataluña 2006, Faculty of Architecture and Fine Arts NTNU Trondheim 2010, Istituto Europeo di Desing 2013, Escuela de Arquitectura de las Palmas de Gran Canaria 2011, Universidad Iberoamericana de Puebla 2015, Universidad San Francisco de Quito 2015).

As critic and editor, Juan Elvira has authored and edited five books, more than fifteen book chapters and  more than twenty articles in national and international periodicals. He has also co-directed Oeste Architecture Magazine (2002-2004). His scholarly activity includes presentations in seminars and lectures in national and international institutions. Co author of V100Y (live 100 years. Longevity and the future city) a research awarded first prize at the 2016 Bienal de Arquitectura Española. Member of the Bienal de Canarias Observatorio del Paisaje. Member of the international research group Atmospheric Spaces. Aura Stimmung Ambiance.

He is co-founder and head of the architecture office Murado & Elvira along with Clara Murado. His works have been awarded in national and international competitions, and exhitibted, among others at the Biennale di Venezia, Bienal de Arquitectura Española, EXPORT or Freshmadrid. Among them, The public library of Baiona was nominated to the Mies van der Rohe award (2019), and the Teknobyen student housing and public space in Trondheim (Norway) received Trondheim’s Townhall Energy Efficiency Prize and was a finalist of Norwegian Architecture Prize.

Roger Paez, La Salle BCN Elisava

Architect ETSAB, Barcelona (1998), MS AAD Columbia University, New York (2000), PhD UPC, Barcelona (2015). GSAPP Honor Award for Excellence in Design. His Doctoral Dissertation “Operative Cartography. Mapping Agency in Architectural Design, 1982-2012”, directed by Jaime Coll (ETSAB UPC) and Iñaki Abalos (Harvard GSD), was awarded a Summa Cum Laude distinction.

Following professional experience in the studios of Alison and Peter Smithson and Enric Miralles, he founded A i B estudi d’arquitectes ( www.aib.cat), a studio devoted to contemporary architectural practice with a critical edge. He has designed the Marine Zoo of Barcelona, the Hospital Clínic extension, and the Mas d’Enric Penitentiary, selected for the FAD Prize 2013 and subject of the book Critical Prison Design published by Actar in 2014.

He has maintained an intense commitment to cultural and academic pursuits. He served as a member of the editorial board of Quaderns d’arquitectura i urbanisme, awarded the Jean Tschumi Prize (2005). He collaborates with Actar Publishers since 2014. He has been an architectural design professor at Ramon Llull University (ETSALS) since 2000. He is the director of the Master in Ephemeral Architecture and Temporary Spaces at ELISAVA since 2015. He has been visiting professor, guest lecturer or jury member at international universities including Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Sci-ARC and University of Southern California in the United States and at the ETSAB, ETSAV, BAC and IaaC in Barcelona. 

References

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Published

2019-11-05

Issue

JIDA'19

Section

PAPERS