Applied Game and Platform for the 'Banne', a neighborhood in the city of Amsterdam

About

With the BanneBak you can playfully create a design for your neighborhood and discover together what is going on in a neighborhood. The game was developed together with residents of Banne Noord, and can be used in any neighborhood, village or city. The method is intended to introduce creativity among users and jointly come up with innovative ideas for your own living environment.

The Project

The Project was conceived in cooperation with De Theaterstraat. A collective of makers that organize activities and art installation for the local communities of northern Amsterdam. The neighborhood they were stationed in was scheduled for major redevelopment, but locals felt like they had very little to say about the changes that were facing their neighborhood.Theaterstraat had close connections to people overseeing the redevelopment and approached us for a playful tool that could help locals come up with new ideas to improve their neighborhood and pitch them to the municipality on their behalf.

The resulting product is De Bannebak. An easily portable cart that visits locals at home, at community centers, at school and other places for congregation. The game leader then walks the participants through a quick game that walks through the basic ideas of rapid prototyping in a playful manner. We found that this mix of homely comfort and influx of creativity gives birth to fantastic ideas that surprise even the locals that bring them to the table.