Gamification of Shape Grammars - Collaborative and Participatory Mass-Housing Design for Kashgar Old Town

This paper describes the framework of an ongoing research, titled 'quasiGRAMMARS', seeking a participatory mass-housing approach. In the context of the city of Kashgar, China, where the convergence of Islamic-Chinese-Turkic cultures has been shaped within a unique style since the 10th century, mass-housing becomes a 3D puzzle that requires each piece to be placed with full of care, motivation, participation, analysis, strategy, art and finally design. Gamification is about designing collaboration and participation for mass-housing, whereas shape grammars are meant for analysis and design. This game finally turns into a strategic game to be scrutinised further in relation to game theory that is mathematically concerned with the economics too. However, the present study aims at proving a participatory design strategy that incentivises valuable action through gamification techniques. Focusing on its specific design development, it reveals some of these techniques to gamify mass-housing for Kashgar in eight steps. While unveiling gamification term for use in architecture domain, the paper discusses the limitations and future directions of the research.