design

Games for Women

- Adam Clare

Some entrepreneurs in Vancouver have discovered that there are not enough games designed specifically for women and they are looking to change that.

As a game designer myself, I think that this is a great thing to see!

Few mainstream video games are made — or marketed — with women in mind, even though nearly 40 per cent of video game players in the United States and Canada are female. The likely reason? Few women are actually designing the games.

Brenda Bailey Gershkovitch and Kirsten Forbes hope to ride to the rescue. Last July, the two Vancouverites launched Silicon Sisters, the first game development studio in the country owned and run by women. It is unique in its mission to design games for young girls from a female perspective.

Their first game, School 26, launches in early spring on computer and portable Mac devices. It’s a role-playing game in which players act as a high school student who helps peers with personal and school-related problems.

Read the rest of the article.

Thanks Stewy!

Board Game Jam: Play to Change

- Adam Clare

Board Game Jam is happening in Toronto this month and it’s a chance for people to explore the world of game making. If you’ve ever wanted to make a game then this is a place to start!

Being a fan of educational and serious games I encourage all of you in Toronto to check out Board Game Jam and participate to make a game that can make the world a better place!

Board Game Jam
Board Game Jam

At the same time, even while videogames seem to occupy the headlines, the world of board gaming is seeing a resurgence in some smaller part of our collective consciousness. All the hipsters know how to play Settlers of Catan, and Snakes & Lattes seems to be packed every single day. If you ask me, it’s part of some broader reconnection to real social interaction in so-called “meatspace,” but I’ll spare you the philosophizin’.

The point is that board games are both wonderfully accessible and quite deep. Everyone can intuitively understand the basics of what goes into making a board game. On a mechanical level, it’s simple arts and crafts. For people looking to be creative, that can be a great change from making a film or any kind of digital media, which require significant technical knowledge and a team of specialists. But making a board game can be lead you down a rabbit-hole into a world of rich creative exploration and sophisticated design. Like the best games of any sort, making a board game is both easy to learn, and tough to master.

Board Game Jam is a low-barrier way to enter the world of gamemaking, and have fun doing it.

Check out Board Game Jam!

Keeping it Cool Without Air Conditioning

- Adam Clare

In really hot countries air conditioning in buildings might seem like a necessity; however, it is possible to design buildings that stay cool in the heat without even using electricity. In Burkina Faso there is a school that was specially designed to stay nice and cool by manipulating airflows.

There’s not much electricity to go around, Kéré says. “So there is no air-conditioning. It’s too expensive for a country like Burkina Faso.”

So when he designed this secondary school for Dano in his native land, he built it with innovative, elegant, distinctive and yet simply constructed split-level roofing and ceiling structures that funnel warm air up and out of the buildings.
…
Tall window slats that can be adjusted control both light and heat. Three to a room, they pull air into the classroom. Heat rises.
To use that movement of air, a series of narrow “chimney” gaps between the convex wave shapes in the highly insulating concrete and brick ceiling pulls the hot air up and out the roof.

Read more and see pictures here.

ECObitat is Green Disaster Relief Housing

- Adam Clare

ECObitat is a proposed modular housing design that looks good and is green. What’s even better is that it is easily deployable in the event of a disaster like a flood or earthquake. These sustainable shelters can be a good relief for the environment and people affected by natural disasters.

ECObitat is made of standard oriented strand boards (OSB) sheets with everything scaled using 1.22 m x 2.44 m dimensions. The structure of the house is made of a steel frame while structural insulated panels (SIP) panels are used for the walls and floor to define the rooms and provide support and insulation. The modular system has dimensions of 2.44 m x 3.10 m x 12.20, which is about the size of a standard 40′ shipping container. The vertical walls and floors are sheathed in OSB with thermo-acoustic insulation.

The whole house stands on telescoping legs, which makes it easier to place it on any type of ground without the need to search for a flat area. The metallic roof of the house features a series of solar panels and a small-scale wind turbine to produce enough power for the entire home. Modular plant boxes are mounted on the exterior and are planted with vegetation, which provides extra insulation. Depending on the types of plants used, the walls of the house can even produce food.

Keep reading at WIDN

ReBurbia: Make the Suburbs Livable Contest

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Inhabitat and Dwell are holding a contest to redesign the suburbs into a sustainable and livable place. The contest is called ReBurbia and they are encouraging wild and crazy ideas to be submitted. If you have an idea to make the suburbs a place for humans to live then you should enter the contest – you better hurry though because the deadline is July 31st.

Calling all future-forward architects, urban designers, renegade planners and imaginative engineers:
Show us how you would re-invent the suburbs! What would a McMansion become if it weren’t a single-family dwelling? How could a vacant big box store be retrofitted for agriculture? What sort of design solutions can you come up with to facilitate car-free mobility, ‘burb-grown food, and local, renewable energy generation? We want to see how you’d design future-proof spaces and systems using the suburban structures of the present, from small-scale retrofits to large-scale restoration—the wilder the better!

Via Spacing.

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