Gamifying Place-Making in Architectural Design Studio: A Workshop Model Based on Place, Territoriality and Appropriation

Abstract

Architectural design education often addresses formal, functional, and technical competencies more directly than the experiential and socio-cultural dimensions of place. This study examines whether a process-oriented gamification approach can help translate abstract concepts of place, territoriality, and appropriation into architectural design decisions. The research was conducted as a qualitative, practice-based educational intervention within a fourth-year undergraduate graduation design studio. Fourteen architecture students participated in a workshop that combined a theoretical presentation with sequential, time-limited, progressively disclosed design missions. Students first created an imaginary user, then designed a 25 m² spatial unit in response to that user’s routines, interests, needs, and sensory preferences. They subsequently formed four groups and integrated their individual units into collective spatial compositions. A theory-informed qualitative content analysis was conducted on 14 individual proposals and four group outcomes. The coding framework focused on user responsiveness, personalization, appropriation, territorial hierarchy, spatial transitions, shared use, and collective integration. The findings suggest that user profiles functioned as generators of spatial programs rather than as secondary additions to predetermined building types. Students incorporated occupational practices, memory, natural light, sound, privacy, atmosphere, and social relationships into their proposals, demonstrating an understanding of place-making as a relationship between function and lived experience. At the collective stage, groups developed different integration strategies, including adjacency, sensory progression, temporal and narrative sequencing, functional interdependence, and shared circulation conceived as a social connector. The study suggests that process-oriented gamification, based on missions, explicit rules, time constraints, progressive disclosure, and collaborative problem-solving, may provide a useful framework for operationalizing theoretical concepts in architectural studio education. Although limited by its small sample and single-course context, the workshop offers a potentially transferable model for linking place theory with user-responsive and collaborative design practice. It demonstrates how playful structures can support negotiation without relying on points, badges, leaderboards, or external rewards.