Learning by playing games: involving and educating the younger inhabitants to the awareness and imagination of the city

The difficulty of inhabiting the contemporary cities defines boundaries and impacts especially on the weaker sections of the population, of which children have the least strong decision-making and communicative power. Finding effective methodologies of involvement is important to educate the inhabitants from the earliest autonomous understanding and experimentation of the city, to build a deep-rooted sense of respect and awareness towards the commons. It is also a fundamental requirement to adapt top-down projects to truly inclusive models for the needs of all inhabitants. The proposal reflects on the role of playing games to involve and educate the younger inhabitants in the awareness of the urban space. Starting from the experience with IMMOI collective, the research refers to the processes of investigation and education about the design of urban spaces and possible uses of abandoned spaces, involving children between 6 and 12 years old. Therefore, different games were designed starting from innovative pedagogical methods and trying different approaches depending on the age and the learning mechanisms of the children involved. The methodologies have been tested with groups of children of three intermediate cities of southern Italy, inside schools, libraries and underused public spaces. The scale of these towns makes them meaningful for research since they present poor urbanity and peculiar social dynamics, which are produced by the “in-between” condition that weakens the cultural and intergenerational relations. Educating children to the right to the city is a fundamental asset to improve public space and playing is an effective method to imagine the city.