ReClaim : Urban Gamification for City Reappropriations : Final Report

Abstract

ReClaim is a two-year, EU-funded research project dedicated to the study of Urban Gamification (MSCA-IF-2 017, grant agreement No 793835). The project is led by Dr Mattia Thibault (PI), supervised by Prof. Juho Hamari, and co-supervised by Dr Judith Veenkamp and Dr Gabriele Ferri. ReClaim ran between September 2018 and September 2020. This report offers an overview on its main activities and findings. After an introduction and an overview of the project outreach, the report is structured into five distinct sections. After a Visual Abstract, the first section presents the research outcomes related to the conceptualisation of “urban gamification”, its strategies and applications, and how it can help us rethink gamification altogether. The second section offers a preview on the results of two series of expert interviews (a traditional one and a boardgame-based one) with designers and academics involved in pervasive games, urban play, larps, DIY urbanism and similar. The third section presents several studies dedicated to specific case studies or fields of application of urban gamification (tourism, sustainability, memory etc.). The fourth section is dedicated to the practical implementations and designs that were part of the project, notably the urban toyification activity Jurassic Tampere and the playful data visualisation device ROOK. The fifth section, finally, throws a glance at the future of urban spaces and at the role of play within them exploring the concept of transurbanism. The report terminates with some conclusions and a detailed account of the project’s academic outcomes. Two appendices are dedicated to the professional profile of the PI of ReClaim, Mattia Thibault, and to a photo album.