Ludic architecture: An agency beyond ready-made narratives

Abstract

Unlike static and predetermined narratives, games offer dynamic and immersive structures that influence all actors involved. An interesting contradiction exists between static narratives that prefer consistency and unchanging foundations when creating designs and ludic agencies that value relationships and connections to maximise potential. This contradiction suggests the need for a paradigm shift, which involves abandoning the predetermined narrative-driven design approach that justifies design acts and decisions by overvaluing one transcendental foundation or solution in representations and design briefs. This study proposes using “ludic architecture” to playfully understand the built environment beyond its linear aim of reaching an idealised conception. Rather than using mottos, canons, and grand conceptions, this study argues that the non-hierarchal medium of ludic architecture provides possibilities for multi-layered acts.
The actions of playful beings, such as intensified tensions, and collectivity, extend architecture beyond mere user participation. The chosen approach involves comparing the literature on architecture and game studies, focusing on specific examples demonstrating the game’s ability to create conflict, events, temporality, and distance. This comparison will be made from both an ontological and structural perspective. Games are not inherited with qualities; nevertheless, they are differential events leading to intensifying relationships between disparate play-beings. Ludic architecture emphasises that multiple agency creators named play-beings individuate continuously evolving and changing operations, understanding games and architecture via an inclusive agency where every entity creates their voluntary meanings. Therefore, the actors of architecture add to the playful experience where the structure, movement, and rules are defined solely to produce architecture.