Your City, Your Space. IPR Prague is piloting a new traveling participation game. Everyone can join.
The Your City, Your Space project rests on two main ideas. First, to engage young people – children and teenagers – because we believe that the earlier they develop curiosity about their surroundings and start reflecting on how things could work better, the stronger the foundations for the cities of the future. Second, to reach neighborhoods of Prague where, in the nine years since the Participation Office was founded, we have not yet worked on any project. We want to learn how people here experience everyday life, how they perceive public space, and whether they are interested in helping shape it. In city planning, we still face the challenge of people’s reluctance to speak up and share their opinions. And that is something we hope to change.
That’s why we created a traveling participation game that we bring to different districts of Prague. A key aspect was using playfulness as a tool to spark dialogue with local residents of all ages. We designed five game stations that encourage visitors (participants) to reflect not only on their own experience of the city, but also on the experience of others.
The game stations include:
My View
A plexiglass window framing a public space, where people can draw what they would like to see there and what they feel is missing.
My Story
A large outdoor graph where visitors use string to mark their presence and activities in the city. Participants are asked questions such as how they spend time in public spaces, while we also collect basic information like age and gender. Thanks to this, we know how many people and which groups of residents attended our event.
Our City
A wheel of fortune that assigns each participant the role of a different city user (for example, an art student, a young explorer, or a senior who enjoys solving crosswords outdoors). They are then invited to write or draw what their character would need in public space to feel comfortable.
Prague Tomorrow
A memory game showing the current and future appearance of places in Prague where revitalization or new development is currently underway or planned.
Participation Jenga
The experience concludes with a Jenga set featuring questions that invite participants to reflect on how the city could work better for everyone.
Ahead of the public event, we hosted a workshop in collaboration with local primary schools. We met with eighth-grade students, many of whom were experiencing, perhaps for the first time, being asked how they perceive the spaces around them, what they like, and what they would like to change. The students were especially interested in the possibilities of transforming public spaces to make them feel more welcoming.
How did the public event go? Despite overcast skies and occasional rain, more than a hundred people visited us throughout the day. One of the liveliest moments came when local school students arrived and built a Jenga tower so tall that we all held our breath as it toppled. We were also thrilled to welcome representatives from the city district, who debated with visitors, including children.
We consider the pilot event in Horní Měcholupy a success. The concept proved effective, the game stations worked as intended, and only minor adjustments are needed for next time. We’re excited to see what experiences await at the six other locations where the game will travel. This autumn, we’ll be heading to Kunratice and Slivenec.
Want to learn more about Your City, Your Space? Visit our website or write to us at participace@ipr.praha.eu.