Playing — an effective urban tool of engagement to understand and intervene within the built environment - a tool to engage with street vendors, who are socially and economically insecure, falling outside the process of city planning. Based in Ahmedabad, ‘Play Methodologies’ invited students to engage with street vendors through participatory tools, to build an understanding of their situation. We started with building a strong research base through on-site visits, readings alongside documentation and mapping of the existing conditions. On this foundation, ‘city gaming’ was explored as a valid method of transforming urban planning into a self-organizing process capable of generating humane cities. Beyond facilitating the construction of strategies to resolve conflicts, it allows for the participation and collaboration of different agents, building mutual trust. These attributes make city gaming a contender for urban toolkits, where rules are tested, adapted, and shaped, and design clues identified. Students built nuanced design briefs on this understanding, accessing the opportunity to create and explore small-scale interventions, with potential for large-scale transformations. Digital and physical models were used to reengage with stakeholders, delivering feedback into the design process. From research, tools, analysis, design and through playing, students learnt how to approach innovative community engagement and inclusive design
