NCAD/UCD Architecture and Dublin City Council Collaboration

“Thinking is just advanced pattern matching. Human beings are memory-prediction machines.”
Jeff Hawkins


As part of my Masters, I have been involved in a collaboration with University College Dublin Architecture students and Dublin City Council in a proposal to stage an intervention in the Grafton Street Area.

The main focus of the project within which there are three other groups of students running concurrent events on a proposed day in the future (soon to be announced) is to get people to engage in the Grafton street area in an alternative fashion. Grafton street does not have to be viewed as a solely commercial area, rather the groups have proposed some very alternative approaches to engaging the physical/architectural/social civic space.

Without more precise knowledge, I will not try to explain what the other collaborators are up to but I will explain a little about our idea.
We have invented the Grafton Street Game.
For further Information on the theory underlying what we are challenging participants to engage in please check out the blog http://graftonstreetgame.blogspot.com

Method:
The treasure hunt:
The game Consists of 7 posters a clue written on each and introduced by a brief description of the rules there is also a number of stickers mimicking the first poster with its initial clue that acts as treasure. These stickers allow the participants to share their experience with others. The game firstly encourages people to experience Grafton street in detail to learn something of its history and current condition. Upon agreeing to the rules the gamers become complicit – they agree to explore Grafton street abiding by the rules. Upon finding the treasure they are presented with a means to expand the game to shift is dynamics or to let it end. They are now collaborators the fact that they now become authors of the game means that they must consider the games development as a whole. They must understand the game as a simulation and must consider neccesairly the games purpose. They must ask themsemslves the benefit of the games maintenance. It is a simulation...

Of course we want people to have fun as well, a sort of reclaiming the civic space of Grafton Street. We encourage people to engage in play in a space that is not necessarily designed physically and consciously as a space for festive activity

As soon as a date is announced for the projects to go ahead I will alert the blogosphere. (Cant believe I just used the term blogosphere)