The encroachment of public open spaces and forests, drying-up of ponds and water sources are the problems observed on preservation frontier. On the other hand, lack of managed green spaces for children to play, elderly to meet and the population to have some recreational time is the problem from perspective of daily life quality to be addressed in urban planning. Centre for Integrated Urban Development (CIUD) has been working with the communities of Kirtipur and Kirtipur Municipality for more than two years to revitalize the public open spaces of Kiritpur.
The encroachment of public open spaces and forests, drying-up of ponds and water sources are the problems observed on preservation frontier. On the other hand, lack of managed green spaces for children to play, elderly to meet and the population to have some recreational time is the problem from perspective of daily life quality to be addressed in urban planning. Centre for Integrated Urban Development (CIUD) has been working with the communities of Kirtipur and Kirtipur Municipality for more than two years to revitalize the public open spaces of Kiritpur.
Minecraft is a game that is played online, and it uses building-blocks to create new places and structures – for all the fun loving and creative players. One can design new buildings, parks, roads and many more, rather anything. However, it is popular among the youngsters. The developer of this game, the Mojang company, believes that Minecraft game can be a great tool for youths to become more creative in designing public open spaces and much more.
Usually youth are not involved in the planning and development processes. But the needs of the youth and their creativity for development – both need to be addressed. Hence a workshop was organized at Kirtipur. In total 37 youth participated and played in the workshop. It was a combination of enthusiastic boys and girls from local community as well as neighborhood communities.
“We are excited to be a part of designing our open spaces. Minecraft has helped us express our feelings and ideas even though we are not professional planners or designers. We thank CIUD team for the support.” – says Mr Jenish Maharjan, a local resident of Kirtipur and one of the participants of 4 days’ workshop on “Designing Public Space with Minecraft” organized by Kirtipur Municipality, UN-HABITAT and CIUD from 17th to 20th February 2015.
Participants of workshop included communities of Kirtipur, Kirtipur Municipality, UN-HABITAT and Mojang, the makers of Mincraft. The message from the Chief Guest – Ex. Secretary of Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) Mr KirshorThapa, who is an Urban Planner Architect, highlighted on possibilities of using Minecraft as a tool to ensure participation of wider communities including youths in other cities like in Kirtipur.
About 30 youths including the local residents of Kiritpur, played Minecraft for 2 and half days through discussions on the options of different design components for utilization of green space area situated downhill towards North-West of Baghbhairab Temple premises. Sharing of concepts and ideas through individual group presentations brought out many creative options for management of green space. “We are very pleased and amazed to see that our youngsters have such an impressive ideas and are able to express them in a planned manner using Minecraft” – says MrHarsha Man Maharjan, a local representative.
“We are happy to be discussing with our youth on how we want our public open spaces area to be designed, how they want to see the area to be developed and at the same time get inputs from our community leaders and experts on different aspects of different design components” says Ms Jamuna Maharjan – a local women actively leading a women’s group at Baghbhairab area of Kirtipur. Bringing wider range of representatives from local communities, especially the youth, into the process of development initiatives is our priority, and our partnership with locals in Kirtipur has started from designing of public open spaces, but this is a ‘process’ rather than just some activities was the take away of the workshop. Workshop concluded with the forward looking approach that Minecraft could be one the tools for youths to become more creative in designing public open spaces and more.
CIUD as an organization will look forward to using many more community friendly tools and technologies, like Minecraft, to make the participations of locals more simple, yet much more effective.
We would like to thank Kirtipur Municipality, Mojang, the makers of Minecraft and UNHABITAT for their support.