ORO Editions City Making 101: Card Topics with Urban Design Guidelines

• Learn 101 topics of urban design in a 2.5-hour game
• Select topics to create your public space project urban design guideline
• Have a fun participatory public space design tool to engage your community and colleagues
• A city making tool to discover, learn, and practice how cities are designed
• A reference guide to cultivate a new civic imagination for liveable and lovable cities

City Making 101 is a base of knowledge for everyone to participate in the design of their cities. It is also a lively role-playing game to co-imagine, debate, then build consensus on design guidelines specific to your public space projects.

City Making 101 is a card game and reference resource for designers and “citizen designers” to imagine, discuss and share ways to realise livable, lovable and walkable cities. The game approach offers each player a dynamic pathway into the complexity of city making. Players gain a base of knowledge about city design and, through reading, reflection, and debate, use the cards to produce a customised design guideline per their priorities and aspirations.

Framed under six categories, the 101 topics focus on fundamental domains of the public realm. Players imagine their ideal urban environment, debate issues on planning and public space, then build consensus on the design guidelines needed to realise their vision, taking into account best practice standards and performance parameters. The game opens up space for conversations, debates on priorities, stakeholder accountability and open-ended proposals on complex physical, social and economic issues.

Alexis Sanal is an architect and a city designer at SANALarc, a founding practice of Open Urban Practice. Born in Los Angeles, she moved to Istanbul in 2002 after studying at SCI-arc ’95 and city planning at MIT ’02.