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Citypedia is an architectural creation game that allows players to discover how different urban patterns are generated and how they affect the organisation of architecture. Players create their own unique city by combining both patterns and form, drawing out configurations of city blocks and rearranging building typologies. Drawing from research into historical city forms, the game allows players to experiment with cities using orthogonal, radial, and Voronoi grids, that are recomputed in real time and procedurally regenerated as the urban patterns change. Players experiment with different skylines and city formations, creating palimpsests built upon previous design decisions. At the scale of buildings, players use tools to reshape individual units, with changes cascading through unit typologies. By combining procedurally generated and player driven systems, Citypedia playfully explores the unexpected quirks and spatial frictions that cities collect over time. The game examines how cities can be planned with an overall vision in mind, but inevitably find themselves transformed and disrupted over time, with their future forms defined by ever more granular and emergent forces.
Trailer for Citypedia game, demonstrating all the tools players can use to create their own unique urban patterns and cities.
Screenshot drawing showing a city built around different organisational systems, where multiple grids collide.
Players draw out urban blocks in the city, which are then procedurally infilled with contextual detail depending on the building form and grid type used in their design.
Different grid combinations can be used in the creation of a city, each of which can change the procedural repopulation of the urban architecture.
As players make changes to the underlying grid system of the city, they can 'refresh' the urban form, which will be procedurally regenerated along the new organisational logics in real time.
Diagram demonstrating the how infill elements are procedurally generated when players close city blocks. These elements are defined by the grid system and contextual building elements used by the player.
Building units can be altered and customised by the player, with changes cascading back through every unit in the city procedurally.
Drawing showing different grid organisations being applied across a city design.
Through using different building types and organisational grids, players can experiment with the formal forces that shape cities. Here they are producing an orthogonally organised high-rise district surrounded by low rise structures.
Different city forms seen in plan.
A game city built on an orthogonal grid.
A game city built upon a radial grid.
A city created on a Voronoi grid.
Development studies to calibrate the in-game skyline analysis system that works in real time.
A conceptual view across a game city showing how different organisational logics combine.
At the end of the game, the city built by the player is analysed on its grid composition and skyline form.
Different city forms that can be produced in the game and how they relate to real-world urban forms.
Different city forms that can be produced in the game and how they relate to real-world urban forms.