"FLIP THE HEAT" the Game

Goal of the game

What is the key message people should take home?

Sealed surfaces retain heat, that leads to the raising temperature especially in big the cities. To protect the inhabitants, animals and plants, we need more multi-species green spaces which can cast shadow and help lower temperature. With the game we hope to raise the citizens's awareness about the importance of creating these green spaces to protect the vulnerable groups and save the neighborhood from overheating and heatwaves.

Research topic of the game

What is the connection to climate change in the city and the human-nonhuman community there? Which problems does it address?

Like mentioned above, due to climate change the temperature is rising continuously. Especially in big cities like Berlin, it's getting hotter and hotter.

Urban areas are usually warmer than their rural surroundings, a phenomenon known as the “heat island effect.”

„Urban heat islands“ occur when cities replace natural land cover with dense concentrations of pavement, buildings, and other surfaces that absorb and retain heat.

The intense summer heat could lead to uncomfortable conditions for residents in summer months.

Heat islands affect communities by increasing summertime peak energy demand, air conditioning costs, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, heat-related illness and mortality, and water quality.

Trees, green roofs, and vegetation can help reduce urban heat island effects by shading building surfaces, deflecting radiation from the sun, and releasing moisture into the atmosphere.

Instructions of the game

How to play:

• The playground represents the Berlin area with some representative regions (Wedding, Neukölln, Lichtenberg, Grünewald) that are getting overheated with heat islands in the middle, symbolised by neon pink triangles and two Safe Area with the multi-species green spaces symbolised by green triangles.

• The region have different amount of sealed surfaces that need to be filled in with multi-species green spaces. „Neukölln“ has the biggest density of sealed surfaces, following with „Wedding“, „Lichtenberg“, „Grünewald“.

• At the start the 4 inhabitants stand in 2 safe areas and the heatwave begins from the middle of the city. 

Task for the inhabitants:

• they are trying to protect as many areas as possible against the heat.

• therefore they must bring the multi-species green spaces (green triangles) to the placeholders around a overheated sealed surface (pink triangles). 

• each person can only carry one triangle at once!

• at the same time, they must pay attention to the heatwave - the player can flip the green triangels back if you haven't completed all the spaceholders in the area. On the other side of the green triangles are over heated surfaces symbolised by neon pink colour with factories, asphalts and buildings icons.

• the inhabitants must try to flip the neon pink triangles back before a whole area is filled with neon pink triangles.

• as an inhabitant you have to complete 3 areas that must include Neukölln to win.

Task for the heatwave:

• you are trying to overheat the city by flipping back green triangles to create more sealed surfaces.

• in case you have flipped all green triangles so that they became the neon pink heated surfaces in one area, the area can't be saved by the inhabitants anymore.

• when you touch an inhabitant they have to go back to a safe space and bring back the green triangles if they have any on hand. They then have to start their round over again. 

• you win if you either complete Neukölln or all the areas surrounding (Wedding + Lichtenberg + Grunewald).

Background research from Sprengelkiez

Background research on the topic, insights from Sprengelkiez process that found its way into our games concepts:

The central goal was to collect a lot of data from the Sprengelkiez through different ways.

On our first day at SprengelHaus we receive historical input and information about the current development inside and around the Kiez. There was a tour around the neighborhood to take a look at the infrastructure, the on going construction works, the zoning and the biodiversity.  

During the tour, we were divided into teams to collect data while taking different human and non-human perspectives.

We have documented data from the perspectives of „zero feet“ (fish, worms, plants), „two feet“ (human) and „two feet and two wings“ (bird and bat) „four feet“ (mammal) and „six feet and more“ (insects).
Afterwards we mapped and documented spatial and temporal factors, sensations, and relationships between different species.

Our next task was to explore the neighborhood again with a group partner. By considering both human and non-human perspectives, we investigated biodiversity in our assigned area of the Kiez.

By collecting leaves, we compared the level of biodiversity in different places. It made the biodiversity visible for us and showed which species can be found in which areas. 

We also mapped the impact, opportunity, and capacity each specie that we noticed during our walk.

Each week we presented our researches and the data we had collected to each other in the course. Finally, we gather all the data to create a map of species that would help us in our next assignments. 

The next step in our data collection was to show the relationships between the different plants with human and non-human species and how they can benefit from each other/ damage each other. 

To do this, we did more research and also in correlation with our previously collected knowledge. We presented our sheets to each other and gave each other feedback to complete the data.

The interviews

To get to know the neighborhood better, we also wanted to get in touch with people to understand their perspectives.
The idea was to conduct interviews with different actors in or around the Sprengelkiez.

We talked to several individuals, including an employee of a small organic food store that cooperates with an urban farm/ playground for children, a Späti-Owner and residents who have lived in the Kiez for a long time and/or have actively taken part in forming the neighborhood.

This was very exciting and new for us, because the local's opinions are often not asked or heard.  We had interesting conversations where they explained their perspective on the governing work and the community activities in the neighborhood.

Then we collected the results and date of the interviews in a „Climate Community Network Sociograms.“
With this we had a tool, to make experiences, desires, goals of the people in the neighborhood visible.

First Event

On May 20, our course organized an evening event at the local church where we presented our research, collected data and interview results.

Different speakers were invited, who dealt with our climate change issue in different ways in very exciting contributions.

In addition to our research, there was also a game and other interactive ways for the guests to participate in our research.

Playing Cards: Imagine you are…

Playing cards:

imagine you are...

What is it like to live as a non-human species in the city?

In order to give our guests a possibility to change their perspective, playing cards were designed to show a small selection of plants and animals in the city.

You could choose one and after a short description you got a task, to create (new) awareness in the sense of the chosen species, how (you) live in the city…

Poster für den Rundgang

Posters were designed for our event in the Sprengelkiez and then again others for the Rundgang at the FhP.

An additional task that cost a lot of nerves and capacities, but was nevertheless very worthwhile and exciting to implement.

Posters for our event****:

While developing the posters, I first envisioned an abstract motif, such as the structure of a leaf or animal (bird) in the form of a close-up, to achieve a certain level of abstraction.

But after scanning leaves of native plants and not getting the result I wanted, I turned to new ideas.

From this arose once again a collection of inspirations from Myriel and the formal parameters were also more clearly defined.

Parallel to the motif, the choice of typography was at least as big a task and sometimes a cause of frustration, but here too I learned a lot and discovered great fonts, as well as better understood their functionality.

I made a lot of illustrations that I arranged on the page.

The idea was to depict a utopia of climate society in the city. The pennant strings between the houses, are to symbolize the interconnectedness. The people on the street, are residents, who playfully take care of their city, with their plants and animals.

I think the design arouses curiosity.

Through the vanishing point to the back, there is much to discover and has something of a utopian idea of what city can look like in a climate community.

Sure, the implementation isn't quite as technical and super clear as the one with the map, plus I think the line style works well with the fluorescent Riso color.

Additionally, another poster was designed for our event.

I printed both designs with the A3 Risograph and then posterized them all over the Sprengelkiez a few days before the event started. 

_Posters for our__** Rundgang:**_

For the Rundgang, we had envisioned a poster series of three different posters.

The posters were to remain simple and show our theme of Climate Community Street Play.

We decided, after a little back and forth for three photographs. The format was to be an A2, which is why the color selection remained small, since there are only three colors available for the A2 Risograph in FhP.

For this Yette (supported me with this print) got an additional introduction to the large A2 Risograph from the workshop management. And I appreciate that very much, because I have not been able to do it any other way.

I want to emphasize again that I really appreciated the tasks and I was aware of how much I can learn through it.

Thanks for that, it was really fun!