"Finally stop with this minecraft"
It was the saying that was heard three years ago every day from me to my then 5 and 8 year old daughters.
My voices of course were never heard, my kids were clearly enthralled with this game so one day I decided to take a look to see what all this crap they play all day is all about.
So when they showed me, I spontaneously said "ooo you do what I do...my next job I will do in Minecraft" and I left smiling awkwardly.
My children continued to play and I not only didn't mind, but I was almost "jealous" of the possibility they have from this age to come into contact with architecture, to understand its basic concepts such as the medium, the scale, the volumes, the materials, the light, the cooperation and interaction of all these and for them and their friends to create buildings and "worlds" of aesthetics that only a child's imagination can create.
And after recovering from the shock and this feeling of jealousy that these modern monsters are now being trained in architecture by building without tomorrow I decided to do more research on this amazing tool for expanding the imagination
It was created in 2011 (Myrto calls it my twin) and in 2014 Microsoft bought the game from its parent company for $2.5 billion and to date it has sold over 200 million copies.
For those who don't know, Minecraft allows its players to build houses, cities and entire worlds using 3D textured cubes that represent various materials. It's something like modern day LEGOs and the players, apart from the worlds of their own imagination, have so far reproduced almost every famous building in existence such as the Taj Mahal, the Sagrada Familia or Fallingwater.
But this would be the least interesting in the impressive world of Minecraft
In 2013, Blockworks was created, which today consists of over 60 designers, artists and programmers from all over the world aged from 14 to 44 years old. This group uses Minecraft either as a digital arts platform or as a language to communicate with young people, offering them through the game information and knowledge about museums and galleries from around the world.
An example of the application of their action is the exact representation of the Expo 2020 exhibition in Dubai. For the first time, a world exhibition is completely recreated in digital form through Minecraft, thus allowing those who could not attend live to "visit" the exhibition from afar.
Also in 2020, Blockworks used Minecraft to create an action dedicated to press freedom and exposing press censorship.
So they created a huge library through Minecraft which contains censored magazines and articles banned in many countries such as Russia, Mexico and Saudi Arabia. This library can be accessed for free by any Minecraft user from around the world.
At the same time, more and more large companies such as Microsoft and WWP are using Minecraft to build exact replicas of their offices around the world on a 1:1 scale, thus allowing their employees to attend events and visit offices in other countries, without to have to move from their place.
Leading figures in digital design predict that the digital metaverse created in Minecraft and other gaming and virtual reality environments will eventually merge with the real world.
"The virtual world and the real world will merge," said Amber Slooten of virtual fashion studio The Fabricant.
"There will be like a virtual layer over reality that you can turn on and off," he said "And there will be virtual worlds that you can enter."
BLOCK BY BLOCK
Block by Block started in 2012 and is an innovative collaboration between Mojang (maker of Minecraft), Microsoft and UN-Habitat (a United Nations agency that aims for a better urban future).
It is a group of renowned experts in public space urban design and architecture, as well as activists working on behalf of the urban poor, including socially excluded and marginalized people.
This group therefore receives hundreds of applications every year to finance and implement the "plan" that the residents themselves made for their place using Minecraft.
The committee therefore evaluates the proposed projects based on their financial viability and other criteria, giving priority to those that incorporate issues such as gender equality, youth empowerment, refugee and immigrant rights, climate change, cultural heritage, human rights, health and safety.
The aim of the action is to upgrade the public space (and by extension the quality of life) of underdeveloped areas and areas that have been affected by earthquakes, wars such as Ukraine (indeed they announced that they will not finance proposals from Russia). However, the planning of these areas is done by the residents themselves, thus giving a step to express their needs and propose solutions, social groups that until now have been excluded from urban planning such as women, children and the elderly as well as "slum" residents
An example is a four-day workspop held in Maputo, Mozambique involving young local girls.
The girls took a tour with smartphones in hand to map their neighborhood. Using an app, they noted where they play, how they get to school and other important locations in the area. The map included clues to where the girls felt safe or unsafe.
The girls then suggested ideas for how they envision their city through designs they made in Minecraft.
Through the Block by blpck action, public spaces have been designed and built in over 25 countries around the world.
Minecraft thus functions as a tool for community participation in urban planning and for the first time a public space plan "listens" and responds to the needs of all residents and not just specific age and social groups.
Certainly, Minecraft is not a simple game, but it has a recognized and educational character
An officially licensed version of the game, MinecraftEdu is designed specifically for classroom use by teachers. The education provided through Minecraft covers areas such as, mathematics, history, art, coding and of course architecture
Also the Architectural Foundation of Chicago has offered summer Minecraft camps for students ages 7 to 18, and Zaniac, an after-school education center in Utah, has also offered Minecraft architecture classes.
"While today's architects grew up playing with LEGO, I have no doubt that the next generation will have played Minecraft," says Blockworks creator Delaney
I think that it will affect the next generations of architects, whose first contact with architecture and design is through this game, since there is a substantial difference with the way we architect until now.
In Minecraft you design as you build, there is no complete plan/study before construction begins
It reminds me of the popular architecture that the design emerged as they were building, and the answer of Aris Konstantinidis to the question asked why Anafiotika is your favorite area in Athens? – Because it was not designed by architects
PS And I was just interrupted by Iliana (fanatic minecraft gamer)
Mom, can I help you with what you are writing?
The villagers are all crazy!