Social Housing meets Minecraft
A rather unexpected tool is used to educate Danish students
Copenhagen, 8 July 2014 | UrbanOur Danish member organisation, BL alongside with the Danish Architecture Center suggest an innovative use of the world famous video game as an educational tool for social housing.
’Lykkeparken’ is the first social housing area inside Minecraft, the popular video game that is played by over 40 million people worldwide. Apparently, apart from an entertaining phenomenon the game can have an educational use, too. At least, our Danish member organisation, BL and the Danish Architecture Center claim so with their latest joint project. The ‘Chasing Community’ funded by Realdania and it offers and additional dimension to traditional teaching. The idea is to teach pupils in Danish elementary schools about democracy and community in social housing.
Due to the wide spread tenant-democracy embedded in the social housing sector in Denmark and the huge impact on the local community that the social housing sector has, there were obvious common interests in working together on a project that could help educate children on the importance democracy and community – and how this is linked with architecture as a facilitator of a good life.
The pupils are given 3 concrete challenges that residents of Lykkeparken are faced with, and are then asked to present their solutions inside the game.
From educational point of view the idea is to tell the story about the social housing sector in Denmark and create awareness of the close relationship between a good life, community and the built environment. At the same time it creates a very concrete platform to teach children about the concepts of democracy and community, which can otherwise be difficult to grasp.
Read MoreAs a start, the project is rolled out in 6 school-classes in 6 different cities all over the country. The aim is to spread it to the rest of Danish elementary schools in cooperation with the local housing organizations.
On top of that there is also a competition. The 6 classes will enjoy a day in Copenhagen on September 5th 2014 in order to compete on the best project.
With the Minecraft project we can show how the social housing organizations in Denmark can think in new ways when it comes to involving residents and shaping local communities for the benefit of many.
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