Building reuse is goal in board game

Such workshops can play a vital role in fostering collaboration, encouraging innovation and empowering communities, says De Peter Yi, a UC assistant professor of architecture who leads the Cincinnati Reuse Collective.

The collective is a research lab and workshop incubator at UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) dedicated to studying the link between Cincinnati’s unique built heritage and current challenges of vacancy, housing and reuse.

Cincinnati Reuse Collective is part urban research course and part survey course, which includes a survey of buildings under the city’s historic structure stabilization program. Students visit diverse neighborhoods and learn about buildings in various phases of the program, many of which are under repair.

This fall, the collective hosted a public workshop at the Smoke House in nearby Camp Washington, a vacant building currently being transformed by artist Mark de Jong.  The workshop focus was to launch a board game called Holding Pattern, designed to teach participants about the often-complex process of vacant building reuse.

In the game, participants take on the roles of various actors navigating the phases of vacant building reuse: acquiring ownership, determining use, securing financing and completing construction.

The game board itself is a mosaic of individual tiles, each representing a vacant building in Cincinnati that has been stabilized for reuse. The custom-designed tiles feature augmented reality models that transform before players' eyes, allowing them to see how a building's appearance evolves as it progresses through the different reuse stages.

These digital models can be viewed on a mobile device or projected onto a large screen, creating a powerful visual experience of Cincinnati’s architectural heritage. University of Michigan assistant professor Cyrus Peñarroyo led the original development of the augmented reality experience.

“The workshop applies architectural techniques toward public understanding of Cincinnati’s built heritage and provides fundamental knowledge to participate in its reuse. The components of the workshop create a framework that is adaptable to new sites, audiences and inputs,” he says.

The board game launch was the result of more than a year of research, collaboration and conversations with organizations across the city. The project team included UC student researchers Wendy Hahn, James Hummeldorf, Zach Lewis and Liv Adkins and University of Michigan student researcher Xuanshu Lin. 

“Working on this project has informed my interdisciplinary environmental studies BS degree, which considers the nuanced interrelationships between humans and the environment,” says Hahn.

Vacant building reuse, Hahn says, is a necessary shift from a resource-based economy to a circular economy by maximizing existing resources, conserving landfill space and revitalizing local communities.

The feedback gathered from this pilot event will shape future workshops, which will bring the collective’s attention to more vacant buildings throughout Cincinnati, continuing to build momentum for this exciting movement of urban transformation, says Yi.