Trust-by-default for me reflects the how we allow our selves to trust some relationships / interactions / associations within the society we live in, even if that requires a risk to be exploited by them. It has to do with the levels of trust, reciprocity and cooperation of the social networks. I guess each one of us can have different examples that are related to the countries we live in…and once we start travelling in other places we observe how other cultures trust more or less some situations.
Some examples of trust-by-default positions: trusting the taxi driver will take you where you want in a new city, trusting the random passer-by gives you the correct directions to go to the address you are looking for, trusting that you’ll get your luggage back after putting it in the bus luggage compartment…Leaving your dog tied outside a store while your shopping, Trusting that people will obey the traffic lights…(there are of course fines if you break the rules but depending the country this may be more or less respected). I’ve heard that in Denmark parents leave their babies in strollers outside when they go for shopping. What I find interesting is that the trust here is not constructed among specific individuals but it is cultivated within a society and it is somehow inherited.
Some examples of mistrust-by-default: (also very culture-specific), not talking to strangers, not stopping for people who are hitchhiking, judging people from their appearance (clothes) and physical characteristics (color)…I believe that this kind of automated mistrust situations depend a lot on the location where they happen and the lack of sense of community/belonging might feel in them.
Some examples of Cyprus: I remember growing up in my village in the countryside of Cyprus that people leave their entrance door open throughout the day so neighbors can come in at any time to have a coffee or ask for something. Literally “my door is always open”…Also people would keep the keys in the car and the engine still running, while they quickly go into a store for a couple of minutes. People also leave their belongings (bags, towels, bags with phone, money, keys) at the beach when they go in the sea, and they trust that people won’t steal their stuff while they are swimming.
Thank you and @LizzieH for replying to my statement. I knew that writing the words neutral, fair and impartial was too bold, therefore I added the question mark (?). I am not confident about this statement, it’s more of a position I’d like to take.
My educational background is in architecture and I worked professionally for 3 years in a “traditional” architecture studio where there is a standard relationship between the architect and the client. In parallel, I was involved in more socially engaged initiatives that allow to build a unique relationship and process with a community group. One of the principles of placemaking, that I am very interested in, is that “the community is the expert”. My intention is to gradually leave the "design-oriented” practice to one that values the perspective and insights of citizens who know a place from experience. I believe it is important to uncover and incorporate the ideas of the citizens in order to create a sustainable and vital community place.
There are many participatory tools around the world allowing designers and technocrats to engage with other community stakeholders, and they all have their strong and weak points. Play the City is an example I came across a few months ago. It is a practice which designs physical games as a method for collaborative decision making. https://www.playthecity.nl/
I agree with you that it is impossible to achieve neutrality from the game designer’s perspective since we tend to be attached to having a set of desirable outcomes. But I suppose that we reduce this by creating conditions for a more open-ended game. And my bold statement was coming from the belief that people enter into a playful situation with less biases or morals. However, this is only an assumption.
I must admit that I did not formulate the following phase well: “I perceive games and playful experiences as a neutral/fair/impartial(?) tool for urban practitioners to engage with citizens and invite them to interact / discuss / explore their environment, their relationship to space and the social behaviors/ activities in the urban space.”
I would rephrase it like this: “I perceive games and playful experiences as a facilitation tool for urban practitioners. A game invites and engages citizens in a more neutral way than other participatory tools, as it is an unconventional way to interact / discuss / explore their environment, their relationship to space and the social behaviors/ activities in the urban space.”
I totally agree! I think I focused too much on your word choice, because neutrality is a topic that I have a lot of feelings about. I think you’re right that people tend to approach playful situations with less biases/morals. I’ve facilitated games with players who dislike each other out of the game are able to play together and cooperate really well in-game; maybe it’s the magic circle giving people a break.
I think that’s why games and playful interventions are frequently used as props in discussions about building bridges. I’d love to see if there’s any research on this!
I want to make an urban game because it is good practice, I intend to go on to design playful (also transformative) experiences for a living. Much of why I would like to get more practice doing this is that this sort of thing is under-explored in the African metropolitan context. Making this urban game will give me the confidence to start exploring what urban games in African cities could look like as a future project. I am impressed with how games are able to disarm potentially difficult topics to allow citizens of cities to reflect on their lived reality and the realities of others in a space where money is often the only thing that directs movement. Living in Europe has given me an impression of how city life can isolate but it has also inspired me to think about how design and specifically game design can change this. Having been a stranger for most of my time in EU and studying games, I have been able to connect with unlikely people, I would like to push the medium to extend this to disparate cohorts in cities by building something that can endure. Something that can be transplanted from city to city and is able to bridge different realities of native and outsider, rich and poor, old and young. I guess like most of you I want to make this game as an artefact that connects people because I wholeheartedly believe that is the purest essence of being human, and if I can provoke some questions about class and race, even better. One thing I didn’t mention before is that I would also like to use the opportunity of this game to test out some design strategies I have been researching, briefly, how ambiguity, curiosity, and appropriation can be used to entice, engage and retain game play as part of making sustainable playful experiences. A neat little paper out of this would be nice

I like this concept of permanent structures, I suspect your architecture background is also a little motivation here
One thought I had was how do you make a playable structure that both implies its function but also serves as a site for spontaneous exploration. I immediately started thinking about some activities that urban youth like to do. Stuff like parkour and skateboarding. I’ve always thought that an ethnography of these kinds of groups can teach us something about how to make the city playable. Being a skateboarder myself, every structure in the cityscape is a playable obstacle to overcome. So some sort of urban ethnography as a point of inspiration and insight.
Do you think it could be worth it to examine some motivations of why strangers interact in public space and that might inform the design of a public game? This is something I am currently trying to expand on.
yes, your are right, it is about my architecture background but also the local context - there is a bad need of permanent public equipment of any sort - I would like to think how to reply to this challenge playfully!
Parkour might be very cool idea! There are so many little acrobats around jumping saltos all days long! (if we really want to dig deep into culture, or ethnography, we might see the connection with traditional mask dances (in practice till nowadays) where young people accumulate saltos, rondos and flips in a row!) Thank you for the idea, Mark !
the design and level of appropriation of public spaces definitely impacts and motivates strangers to interact more or less! And the willingness to interact is a complex subject as it depends on local culture, the social ties within a community and many other factors…I think it is a huge subject that it needs to be first explored in a very specific context and location…what do you think?
