Playable cities: A short survey (Keynote paper)

Digital technology can make cities smart. City managements can make use of information that can be extracted from databases in which data is collected about energy consumption, traffic behavior, waste management, human behavior in public environments and opinions of the general public, for example as they can be collected from social media. But can this digital technology and the data collected from it help to make living in a city more enjoyable? How can digital technology and information provided by digital technology make cities playful, allow citizens to engage in playful and entertaining activities that help to enjoy their daily and sometimes boring activities such as travelling, working, child care, house-keeping? This paper investigates how sensors and actuators in an urban environment can be introduced and used to design playful applications. We observe how ideas about playable cities emerge and develop. Interactive digital installations can provide fun, urban games can provide fun, but the experiences obtained from them can as well provide urban designers, architects, gamification and public media designers about public behavior and preferences.