Back home

Big thanks to everyone who participated in the Pilsen conference or followed it remotely. It is a very reassuring and positive experience to have learned much about real impact the Future City Games produced in lots of cities across Europe, and also have seen the launch of Urban Ideas Bakery that will bring ideas forward and generate practical...
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What did I bring back from Pilsen...

Thank you for your input. I really enjoyed meeting GamesMasters and Future City Game participants from so many countries. It is such a great inspiration to hear about how the game has been used in different locations and also about the plans for using it in other places...In the end I did not bring a beer back from Pilsen. Instead I brought back en...
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Svetovar - practical workshops

The world at a boiling point - what a rich image for the old brewery and more recently disused army barracks. Participants got different briefs for developing the site and all did wonderful presentations; one a city archive, a second an entertainment centre    ...
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Pyramid selling

Our second guest blogger: Jon Rea - Nottingham City Council The Creative Community Planning conference has been a great place to find out about other Future City Games and in particular share experiences and strategies for engaging different communities in the game process. At the risk of sounding a bit glib, when it comes to recruiting players i...
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Design cities with people, not for them

Urban Ideas Bakery will be a process of creating a shared vision about where the town or community wants to go and  what resources we need to make this happen. Our aim is to stop designing cities for people, but start designing them with people, following several simple steps of the Bakery method: - Diagnostic: mapping of stakeholders, resour...
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What is the best thing about your city?

'We are at our best and worst in cities' - said Charlie Leadbeater from the UK who was working with the British Council to develop the Bakery method. Indeed, we should not limit ourselves to looking at challenges, putting aside advantages and reasons why we actually strive to live in cities? Science, groundbreaking inventions, arts, culture, govern...
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Urban Ideas Bakery - moments before launch

It took us one year to figure out what practice we should apply to make Urban Ideas Bakery, one of the Creative Cities project strands, a viable instrument to make our cities a better place to live, work and play. The Bakery was originally visioned as a portable space travelling across borders, engaging local professionals and experts to find prac...
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GamesMasters discuss barriers

The GamesMasters group discussed what barriers their were when playing the game 4 barriers Barrier: Ideas are not thought through enogh. Solution: Innovative solutions. Testing should be more rigorous. Barrier: Connecting with city Solution: Power mapping of who gets things done; engaging champions Barrier: City authories are not thinking futur...
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How do you get ideas to take off?

Some of ideas are not very ambitious and people would probably be the same if you had asked the people to write down some ideas each on the back of a postcard. Some felt that the most succesful ideas were when their had been a budget allocated in the first place, and the game was around the budget could be used.  ...
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Technical aspects of Future City Game

We have split into three groups to discuss what parts of Future City Game works well and which parts are challenging. One group is running a simulation of Future City Game for Czech participants. Another group consisting of Players and City Partners and finally a group of Games Masters. Initial feedback from the groups: In the group of players an...
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Engaging children and young people.

The next case study is from Jon Rea from Nottingham City Council. Nottinghim City Council see Future City Game as a toolkit for participation. In Nottingham, engaging children and young people something that has grown over the last years. Children and young people have in the past been victims of top-down decisions. The underlying reason for doin...
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Good players make a good game: cases, part II

'Good players make a good game' - claimed Diana from Estonia who moderated the Game in Tallinn only a week ago. I was astonished to know that '400,000 bicycles' winning idea takes less money to implement than building a single transport junction in the city - a response to sceptics who challenge the feasibility of some ideas! In the next presentat...
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Day Two: more cases, part I

The second day of the Forum has just started with more presentations and case studies of past and upcoming Future City Games across Europe. The Finnish team presented the game played in Helsinki with the aim to revitalise Suvilahti power plant and surrounding areas, and possibly use it as a cultural public space. The Game Masters claimed Future Cit...
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Future City Game and recession

During group session our team was asked to brainstorm the most urgent and important issues contemporary cities are facing during the world's economic recession. We unanimously mentioned higher unemployment, low public spending on culture and creative industries, low long-term investment, hard job to enter the job market for young people etc. Then ...
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Our first guest blogger: Neil McInroy from CLES

The day was a smorgasbord and varied tour de force.  The problems our individual cities face are many and varied. However the Future City Game has a key role to play and a few abiding commonalities stand out.  Firstly, grappling with the scale of problems can only be solved by collective action and a common sense of purpose. This is no...
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Present European Cities and Culture

We have broken into groups and I am currently in a group that discusses "Present European Cities and Culture". Culture is mentioned as being the "voice of society".  The group thinks that culture can be seen as a driving engine cities because it attracts people with resources. People engage in culture, not necessarily to ma...
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Cases, cases, cases

We moved on to the cases studies and hear about some great games in Pilsen, Lodz, Kosice, all three cities working with the European Capital of Culture at different levels. In both Pilsen and Lodz the game has been used in preparing bids to become European Capitals of Culture. Strong learning points from these cases were: 1) Build a strong organisa...
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Did you know that...?

Did you know that Future City Games have reached over 14 million people via media, forums, events and networks across Central Eastern Europe and the UK? Check out some impressive figures about past games in 2008-2009: - we played 50 games, with a total number of 99 games. This year Estonia is a leader with 16 games played! - we directly enga...
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The ball has been kicked!

'Creative Community Planning' forum in Pilsen has just started with warm greetings of the organisers - British Council, Centre for Community Organising and the City of Pilsen, and an inspiring presentation by energetic Neil McInroy from Centre of Local Economic Studies (UK). The forum is bringing together over 100 game players, partners and creati...
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What is Creative Community Planning?

This afternoon I arrived in the beautiful city of Prague and will travel the final leg of the journey to Pilsen tomorrow morning. I have been asked whether Creative Community Planning is just a niche event for planners? As players of Future City Game will know - the answer is no. I think the name of this event, which I can take no credit for, is r...
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Hail, hail modern world!

Variety of people, viewpoints and thoughts is what I always admired about Creative Cities project and Future City Games in particular. What is even more exciting is the outcome of each game and event – a unique and unpredictable mixture of emotions, experience, fantasy and practicism. Having observed two games in Ukraine and heard lots about ...
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What will I bring home from Pilsen?

I am looking very much forward to meeting partners, players, game masters and other participants from Creative Cities' countries where Future City Game has been played over the last 18 months. For me events like this give a chance to share experiences and reflect on the process - the international dimension gives added value as the abundance of exp...
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