Urbanology

BMW / Guggenheim

A traveling laboratory for exploring contemporary urban life.

Overview

The Urbanology game invites people to confront a variety of realistic urban dilemmas, allowing players to argue and vote for different scenarios along the major themes of urban life: innovation, transportation, health, affordability, wealth, lifestyle, sustainability and livability.

Partners

ZUS Zones Urbaines Sensibles

Services

Experience Design, Media Design

The Details

Players are challenged with questions like "A casino will pay for free rail transportation from the center of the city to the airport—as long as trains stop at their casino. Will you allow this?" A custom algorithm analyzes answers and calculates the closest real-world equivalent to the city that the player has created. In this way, the interactive installation invites visitors to set priorities and build the city of the future. Visitors could play Urbanology in person at the BMW Guggenheim Lab in New York City in October of 2011, and can still be played online today.

photo