Urban play in practice

Cities are complex, layered, messy and contested spaces. While smart cities seek to assimilate and control these spaces, urban play engages with the energy and life of cities in different ways: as a creative and generative force, an assemblage of code and place and an ecosystem that emerges through interactions between people, places, materials and infrastructure. Each view of the city – and there are many – presents a different civic identity, way of being or interdisciplinary approach. Urban play in practice is challenging because it is situated in the complexity of the street and because it traverses multiple disciplines and, by extension, different value systems.

Drawing on 43 interviews with practitioners in the field, this problematic space is explored by reflecting on urban play in practice. Seven lenses are established that look for points of difference and connection in urban play: creative producer, city planner, gamer, technologist, citizen, First peoples and artist gamemakers. By looking through these lenses, the social and cultural value of urban play is articulated and then tested through analysis of several case studies that reflect on the different values – and therefore definitions of urban play – of those working in this space. As a result, the role of urban play communities is explored in relation to the sociocultural value of playable cities, including strategies for a way forward through a recognition of not only the value of urban play but also its inherent diversity.