MASTERS OF URBAN DESIGN THESIS | DESIGNING FOR DYSTOPIA
FALL 2020 - SPRING 2021
[Adobe Illustrator ; Adobe Photoshop ; Adobe Premiere ; Rhino 3D ; Steam's Tabletop Simulator]
AIA Cleveland Design Awards | Student Work - Merit Award 2021
AIA Cleveland Design Lecture Series | Unbuilt Work 2021
Kent State University | Masters of Urban Design Thesis Award 2021
The culminating project to my academic career, "Designing for Dystopia," was inspired by my love of science fiction, research, creative solutions, and games. This project was divided into two parts, the Research component and the Design component, amounting in a cohesive study of the connections between the future of work, social responsibility + relationships, capitalism, and board games.
This project was completed during the 2020/2021 Covid-19 pandemic - meaning it was fully online from start to finish. This became especially challenging as the project developed into a board game; how do you play test a game during a pandemic that requires social distancing? Digital tools provided the means to not only play test the mechanics of the game, but to have a means to play + share the game with others across state lines.
Read more about each stage of the project below.
1 | RESEARCH
The focus of the Fall 2020 semester was identifying and researching a topic. As an overview, the research topic of this project aimed to understand the historical, current, and future implications that general societal trends have on the dynamics of living and working (and thus the architectural decisions that must be made in turn). A major factor of this research was the role that speculation plays on the envisioning of "the future." Therefore, science fiction served as a backbone of the project, encouraging the development of a means to communicate a variety of different possibilities for the unpredictable future to influence the built environment.
Click the "PROJECT DOSSIER" button below to read the report.
2 | DESIGN
The second phase to this thesis project took the findings from the research and incorporated them into a board game that took inspiration from science fiction, scenario planning, and games focusing on storytelling and strategy. This game ultimately seeks to demystify the design and planning processes by allowing a wider audience to consider how forces outside of their control can influence how (and when) built work can be implemented. The game itself was created digitally, as the COVID-19 pandemic greatly impacted the ability for in-person testing sessions. For this reason, the digital version used Steam's Tabletop Simulator to allow multiple testing sessions to happen safely. Feedback was collected using forms, and edits to the gameplay occurred concurrently with the development and finalization of the game. Another aspect to the project was the creation of a narrative-generating gameplay option. This option was utilized in order to create a short story accompanied by several graphics to illustrate the game's flexibility in encouraging players to create their own plots using game components.
More information about the specifics of the game can be found in the Instructions Booklet, as well as in the Instructional Video. A physical copy of the game is in the works. Check back for more information.
