Tools of Play - Metastadt
Game-Based Research and Exhibition Project
In collaboration with Leonie Lux, Agata Dalach, Luca Coromines
Exhibited at Architekturschaufenster Karlsruhe, 2021
At the TUM Chair of Architectural Informatics in collaboration with the KIT Chair of Architectural Theory (Nathalie Bredella)
Exhibited at Architekturschaufenster Karlsruhe, 2021
At the TUM Chair of Architectural Informatics in collaboration with the KIT Chair of Architectural Theory (Nathalie Bredella)
"Monumente Versinken. Architekten werden Metatekten. Planung wird Leben." / "Monuments are sinking. Architects become Metatects. Planning becomes Living"
With this the optimistic slogan Richard Dietrich used to describe the cybernetic "Metastadt" project in 1969. A comic strip shows how the Metastadt - a freely configurable and appropriable cube system - overgrows the late modernist housing estate of Neuperlach in Munich. The Metastadt building system is presented as a critique of Neuperlach's generic top-down planning: an open and participatory system that playfully adapts to residents' needs and supports a variety of lifestyles. At the same time, the project integrates contemporary technical innovations - digital simulations, cybernetic circuits, and standardized component catalogs. These are juxtaposed in playful contrasts - the proto-digital voxels of the Metastadt combine algorithmic aspirations, planning simulations, and participatory negotiations.
The project approaches the Metastadt in an experimental, playful way. Speculatively, the various systems of the Metastadt are recreated as (computer) games. On the one hand, "inside" perspectives into the Metastadt emerge in the design and play process. On the other hand, interfaces between the different spaces, systems, and planning logics of the Metastadt are investigated: How do ecological cybernetics, situationist exploration, and building block games intertwine?
