Playable City Melbourne puts people and play at the heart of the Future City
Population estimate: 4.269 million
(as of 2014)
About the City
Melbourne is the creative capital of Australia, consisting of 31 municipalities. A rapidly expanding, diverse, populous city, its reach extends beyond the inner city developments along the Yarra River. The majority of the major cultural organisations of Australia are based in Melbourne.
About Playable City Melbourne
Playable City Melbourne launched in 2016 to develop imaginative new ideas for urban spaces and to engage communities in thinking about the future of Melbourne as the city undergoes rapid development.
“In my first encounters with the Playable City, I was attracted to the idea of civic conversations that were democratic and inclusive – and that connected people in that conversation across different layers of the city, reimagining what it was, what it is now, and what it could be. Melbourne is already a playful city, what would happen if it became playable? The Playable City Melbourne conversation talks to its multi-layered identity – as a creative city, technological city, a diverse and multicultural city, a liveable city that is growing fast. It looks at what playable cities are now in response to our particular social, cultural and environmental context.”
Troy Innocent, Creative Director of 64 Ways of Being
Playable City Melbourne activities are produced by Watershed and supported by British Council Australia.
Upcoming
As part of Melbourne International Games Week, Watershed will present on Playable City at the RMIT Urban Play Symposium.
Playable cities connect people and place through urban play – what does this mean in Melbourne, a city that is home to diverse play cultures, artist gamemakers, indie game devs, and ludic public spaces? How can we play together on the streets of Melbourne?
There will be two day-long events across two days:
Playable City Melbourne: public-facing urban play community event open to everyone
Urban Play Symposium: industry event for strategic thinking and discussion
Past Activity
Hilary O’Shaughnessy from Watershed spoke the REMIX Creative State Summit in Melbourne on 30 and 31 May, 2019.
Melbourne Activity Timeline
2018
In October 2018, Playable City led their ‘City Conversation’ workshop on the invitation of the City of Melbourne as a way to kickstart the collective visioning and thinking that is required to make a potential longer-term programme have impact and sustainability.
Participants on the day included representatives from culture organisations (ACMI, State Library of Victoria,), commercial companies (Telstra), representatives from the indie game scene (Freeplay and Bar SK Melbourne) and universities (RMIT, Swinburne), among others.
In November, The Victorian Governments Creative State Commissions Program awarded Troy Innocent, games studio Millipede and performance collective one step at a time like this a commission to create 64 Ways of Being. Melbourne will be transformed into a giant playable city combining live art, augmented reality and games technology over the length of a year. Watershed will act as a consultant on the project.
64 Ways of Being from Troy Innocent on Vimeo.
2017
In 2017 Troy Innocent was awarded the Melbourne Knowledge Fellowship to research and develop Playable cities in the UK and Europe leading to a cross-disciplinary collaboration with urban designers, policy makers and creative facilitators to transform the city through play.
Troy spend a number of weeks at the Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol, researching the Playable City approach, connecting with residents and playtesting his Wayfinder App.
Playable City acknowledges the Traditional Owners, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, on whose land they meet, share and work. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, and extend our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from all nations of the land.
