The Imitation Game: Games as an Experience of Participation, Knowledge, Evaluation, and Sharing of Design

Introduction

The impact of human behavior on the environment far outstrips our planet’s capacity to absorb and metabolize it. We consume far more resources than the ecosystem is able to regenerate, with disastrous consequences in terms of the pollution of the planet and the depletion of living species, in both number and variety. Nevertheless, a significant chunk of the human population lives below the absolute poverty line, with difficulty accessing adequate quantities of food and water, as well as a lack of sufficient energy and material goods. This situation makes it very clear that there is a need to drastically reduce our consumption levels and the impact resulting from the lifestyles of more developed countries in order to facilitate the development of populations that are in dire need - as opposed to bringing the point of deficit of natural resources even closer than it has been for quite some time - and thus allow for an attempt to rebalance the ratio of available resources to consumption on a global scale.

Global efforts to reduce energy consumption and CO₂ emissions have not had the desired effects, despite significant increases in the energy efficiency levels of the manufacture of individual products and the provision of services. The policy initiatives promoted by governments have not proven capable of reversing the global trend, and there are very few concrete actions at the local level that attempt - even in their own small way - to address the overall problem of emissions and consumption by providing virtuous models to be followed.

Each of us, in our capacity as citizens, is aware of the need to change our behavior with a view to increasing environmental sustainability, but it is difficult - if not outright impossible - for any of us to gain an accurate idea of the real-world effect of each individual choice that we make. Even when we are working as planners or administrators - in other words, whenever we are making choices outside our personal sphere - despite the existence of participatory planning tools, we struggle to accurately discern the degree of social acceptability of our operations and weigh up the available alternatives.

Although on the one hand, there is now widespread use of advanced simulation tools that allow us to make conscious choices with respect to specific issues (e.g. energy consumption) as they affect individual objects or services (cars, buildings, etc.), the available options for predicting the degree of acceptability of these choices by the general population, as well as their interaction at the scale of the settled society, highlights a chronic lack of tools for assessment and representation (Rogora 1997, Clementi, 2019).

The search for impact prediction tools that can be used by administrators, planners and citizens alike and that involve and engage all stakeholders in deciding what action to take is the foundation of this research project: The Imitation Game.

This chapter reports the results of a more in-depth look at this approach, thanks to the research the Imitation Game, applying it to the specific issue of actions in a local area that are oriented towards deep sustainability objectives, where the framework of available environmental resources is clear.

The peculiarity of the game proposed by The Imitation Game research lies in the need to modify the behavior of individual players in order to make operational certain project choices. The choice to adopt soft mobility solutions, for example, will be mandatory for the entire duration of the game for the player that selects to use the bicycle. This will allow to bring out potential conflicts between sustainability and social acceptability and to identify possible solutions to the problem.

The basic experiment underpinning the research involves applying the logic of role-playing and simulation games and assessing their effectiveness in shared decision-making for sustainable planning choices which require significant changes to the lifestyle of those involved. This approach also represents a highly innovative method in terms of teaching and teacher-student interaction.

It offers a game experience in which the participants can simulate transformation scenarios within a set of limited available resources (time, money, water, energy, productive land, food, etc.) and in which the players represent the real-life stakeholders of the context in which it is set. This makes it possible to simulate the effects and define the countermeasures to be adopted in order to arrive at shared solutions with explicit, measurable effects.