WIN WIN BOARD GAMES

Faculty Research
Date: Spring 2015-current
Principal Investigator and Professor: Janette Kim

Win-Win is a series of board games that play out climate risk scenarios in cities. These games imagine how climate change will impact cities-through effects on local economies, the displacement of residents, hard infrastructures such as energy and transport, and soft infrastructures including schools and emergency shelters. Thus, by designing interactions among players, objectives and resources, these games model the social justice implications of innovative financial and legal strategies.

Community advocates are using these games to prompt discussion among their constituents. and to inform decision-making processes. The games serve as a new kind of decision-making tool for a warming world—one that imagines new relationships among economies, publics and architectural design.

Bartertown tests how social networks can be re-shaped by an economy of favors and resource-sharing. For more information on Bartertown, see link. The Other 99% is a Monopoly-style real estate game, except that one player starts with three times the money than the others, who in turn have three times as many votes. Delirious D.C. retrofits buildings to recombine tenants instead of evicting them. Architectural fragments define new institutions like the F.B.I.R.S. and “detentucation.” Flip This Hood pits a ‘home team’ of local residents against an ‘away’ team of stadium patrons, to claim land through benevolent and aggressive actions ranging from public art pieces to illegal dumping; squatting to evictions. Lastly, In It Together asks stakeholders around San Leandro Bay with competing interests—like wildlife, a developer, or an East Oakland resident—to decide when to compete or cooperate, as the city changes and seas rise. For more information on In It Together, see link.This game is currently under development for commercial distribution with Room and Board Games.

Win-Win was also exhibited at Bay Area Now 8, YBCA’s signature triennial, as part of a piece entitled A Seat at the Table created by UWA. Please also see our Events/News page for information about past and upcoming game nights.

Credits:

The Other 99% was created by Syracuse University students Shiyun Fan, Huaye Wei, and Seungah Lee in 2016 a seminar taught by Janette Kim.
Delirious D.C. was created by students at Columbia University Mira De Avila-Shin and Galen Pardee in 2015 in a studio taught by Janette Kim.
Flip This Hood was created by students at California College of the Arts Rachel (Quinn) Hammond and Sean Gentry in 2016 in a studio taught by Janette Kim.
In It Together was created by California College of the Arts Urban Works Agency/Janette Kim and All Bay Collective for the Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge. The All Bay Collective team includes AECOM, CMG Landscape Architecture, UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, and CCA (led by Janette Kim and Neeraj Bhatia), in association with Silverstrum Climate Associates, Skeo, Moll de Monchaux, and David Baker Architects. CCA student authors of the game are Shahad Alamoudi, Marwan Barmasood, Georgia Came, Denisse Correa Guerra, Ally Foronda, Eric Fura, Francisco Garcia, Jessica Grinaker, Fathmath Isha, Lori Martinez, Jennifer Pandian and Sabrina Schrader.
Bartertown was created by Janette Kim/Urban Works Agency with Research/Design Assistants Jen Tai and Clare Hacko. The game was commissioned by the Bay Area Conservation and Development Commission Adapt to Rising Tides program via a grant to Urban Works Agency. BCDC is using the game as a public engagement tool in a Caltrans Regional Planning Grant awarded to Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), BCDC, Caltrans District 4, and Bay Area Regional Collaborative (BARC).