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We Are Where Now?

Download our 2021program:Click here!
We Are Where Now? 20 Nov – 5 of Dec 2021, at 176 Little Londsdale St. -Melbourne

Let’s play in public space again!
We’re excited to finally announce the event dates and program for ‘We Are Where Now?’

From the 20th of November to 5th of December 2021, at 176 Little Lonsdale St. Melbourne becomes a playable city connecting music, games and fashion with public space. Inspired by the Watershed method, the program includes playful parklets, musical plants, nomadic urban play agents, pop-up street games and a three-hour augmented reality journey.

Follow and tag us on our Instagram at @playablemelb or Twitter @PlayableMelb !

•Visited the parklet already? We’d love to hear from you so we can bring playfulness back to Melbourne! • Click here to share your thoughts! •

Playful parklet coming in November 2021

Playable City Melbourne’s playful parklet

As the city reopens, Melbourne will become a playable city connecting music, games and fashion with public space.

This event will showcase experiences such as playful parklets, musical plants, nomadic urban play agents, pop-up street games and a three-hour augmented reality journey. Get ready to play in public space again!

Follow @playablemelb for announcements!

Our 2021 program is launching at Melbourne International Games Week.

Join Melbourne’s urban play community to experience installation and events connecting music, games and fashion with public space. Playable City Melbourne is an arts festival distributed over space and time responding to ways our cities are changing in response to the pandemic. Play musical plants in a parklet, join street games with physical distancing, or experience a 3-hour show in the privacy of your own phone. The everchanging program responds to our current collective mood: hopeful, exhausted, lost, found, vulnerable, resilient, or all of the above. Working with the Watershed Pervasive Media Studio and featuring work from Chad Toprak, Helen Kwok, Playable Streets, 64 Ways of Being and many others, urban play will hit the streets post-lockdown.
A parklet with playful figures.

2021 program coming soon

A ten-day program of public events and playable city installations during Melbourne International Games Week in October 2021.

Playable City Melbourne will bring the Watershed method to the city to co-create and remake works that connect music, games and fashion with public space.

Watch this space!

Supposing The Future of Melbourne, Tomorrow

In the coming years Melbourne is set to transform into not only a Smart City, but also a Playable City.

This means moving away from purely functional architecture, urban design and infrastructure to create more opportunities for telling stories, creating human connection and engaging our inner curiosity.

Such a transformation calls upon the many and diverse people within Melbourne to help bring our city to life.

Our free conference and first town hall meeting for Playable City Melbourne is happening on Thursday October 10th.

Add your voice to the discussion, or just come along to see what all the fuss is about!

What advice, experience or expertise can you offer to make our city more playful?

Planning The Playful Takeover

Melbourne is a bustling urban metropolis filled with life.

Its tram bells call a sing-song chorus, carting people to and fro.
Its laneways hide secrets for the adventurous to find.
Its arcades bristle with activity, echoing with excitement.
Its parks teem with life; human, four-legged and more.
Its streets are lined with buskers, imbuing the air with song.
Its cafes buzz with coffee lovers, relishing their morning brews.

Melbourne is a busy city indeed.

But within this busyness there are many and varied opportunities for play to occur.

How can we take orchestrate a playful takeover, transforming busy-ness into playful-ness?

Multi-Layered Ways of Being

The city is waiting to be opened.
Its layers exposed.

There are multi-layered realities in our modern urban lives, not all of which are visible to the naked eye.

Physical, digital, social, historical, cultural, economical, ecological, psychological… To name but a few.

As our city evolves, the interplay of these layers creates a liveable, diverse, creative, knowledgeable and playful city.

64 Ways of Being is a project supported by the Victorian government that will use augmented reality, game design and public art to playfully reveal the multi-layered realities of Melbourne, transforming the city into a giant playground.

How many layers of reality do you experience in the streets of Melbourne and how can play help us to reveal, share and participate in our multi-layered city?

Beyond Functional Infrastructure

Photo credit: James HH Morgan

Collaborations and opportunities for creative development can come from things you’d never expect to be playful, such as infrastructure.

Our city is rapidly expanding, and with growth comes a greater emphasis on infrastructure.

As public transport, roads and shared paths become more ubiquitous, new opportunities are emerging for creative industries to take an active role in the development of Melbourne. Who says all infrastructure needs to be solely functional?

Last year Dr. Troy Innocent converted a tram into a moving, playable symphony. The tram will once again take to the streets for its final chorus on route 96 from Brunswick to St Kilda for Melbourne International Games Week 2019.

What new collaborations will you venture into to bring playful augmentations to our everyday urban lives?

Take Play Back To The Streets

As our city grows, our day-to-day urban lives become ever busier. Smart City design strives for an urban design that is liveable, but it also places the onus upon a high-functioning society, often leaving playfulness by the wayside.

With this push towards functionality, we are losing a time-old tradition; playing together in the streets.

Attend Playable City Melbourne to take part in the growing discussion around playable city design and find opportunities for how you or your organisation can contribute to this new frontier for game design, urban design, culture, society, architecture and more.

As our city develops, how can we integrate playfulness into our urban lives to bring play back into our streets?