Designing for playful mobilities

Abstract

In this paper we consider how playful mobilities mediate and augment the power to transform the everyday and support a playful engagement with the city through design. Like other forms of mobility, playful mobilities is embodied; it involves multiple interactions with bodies, and different forms of movement within and through space. Drawing from playful mobilities, this paper explores how play can inform design decisions to compel action and affect, and offers insight into the nexus between playful mobilities and speculative design interventions. It draws on mobile autoethnography diaries focusing on e-scootering, cycling, and playing Pokémon Go to highlight how play orientates our bodies with our environment and others. Along with the site and precedent analysis, the autoethnography diary entries become the base for a series of speculative designs situated in Wellington, New Zealand. The design speculations couple playful mobilities and the materialities of designed interventions, making tangible the intersection between designing for mobile situations and potential atmosphere to enrich space and experience that take place along journeys.