Greek Members of ‘SARCHA: School of ARCHitecture 4 All’ Travel to Rome

The Greek Members of ‘SARCHA: School of ARCHitecture 4 All’ recently visited Rome.  SARCHA is a not-for-profit that aims to educate and motivate the public regarding architecture’s impact on the formation of the life-shaping environment. It promotes research, actions and projects that examine architecture’s relation to and connection with the diverse and political aspects of individual and collective activities.

The SARCHA working team wishes to adapt Polypolis social game to the specific city resource conditions in Rome (Pigneto area) and design the Polypolis_Roma version of the game.

Polypolis reverses the ‘one winner takes all’ logic of ‘monopoly’, and adapts it specifically to the complex issues facing contemporary cities by experimenting with different ways in which the common resources of the city can be held and mobilized collectively by its inhabitants.

Polypolis is a role-playing social game; it entails negotiations among four different groups of players that strive to resolve complex issues related to the existing human/physical/natural resources within city blocks.

The Polypolis game was conceived as a testing ground for SARCHA’s “CCR: CityCommonResource (2010-2011)” research theme and the “CCR Athens Gerani 2010” pilot study; the latter was commissioned by the Hellenic Ministry for the Environment and shortlisted among 54 submission at the “Resourceful Architect” RSA competition (London, May 2011).

The game has been tested at the p-public festival (Chania –Crete, June 2011), played by the Moraitis school forensics group (Athens, Oct. 12, 2011) and presented at the Hellenic Technical Chamber’s conference “Public space – wanted” (Thessaloniki Oct. 22, 2011).

SARCHA is interested to develop and adapt the CCR approach in various city contexts and in other countries by producing specific editions of Polypolis.  Scheduled additional venues include London, at the architecture festival of 2012.