Tirolcraft: The quest of children to playing the role of planners at a heritage protected town

Abstract

The main goal of the article is to explore the potential of Minecraft as a platform to engage children into participatory planning. The game enables the players to easily design using blocks to build structures like houses, playgrounds, lakes, vegetation, agriculture, etc. The area of study is a town called Tirol, a heritage protected settlement built by austrian immigrants in the municipality of Santa Leopoldina, State of Espírito Santo, Brazil. This article advances on the state of the art by articulating the potential of Minecraft as a game-based learning into urban participatory planning with children as protagonists actors of rethinking the city. Also, the game enables children to design appropriating themselves on the concept of “child-friendly city” and discussing their design ideas with each other collaboratively. The results indicate that children can learn and work on a playful way to collaborate on urban planning processes, and widens open new researches possibilities.