In 2024, Egypt completed its 1,155km stretch of the Cairo–Cape Town Highway, a 10,228km‑long road connecting 10 African countries – Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa.   The imaginary of ‘Cape to Cairo’ is not new. In 1874, editor of the Daily Telegraph Edwin Arnold proposed a plan to connect the African continent by rail, a project that came to be known as the Cape to Cairo Railway project. Cecil Rhodes expressed his support for the project, seeing it as a means to connect the various ‘possessions’ of the British Empire across Africa, facilitating the movement of troops and natural resources. This railway project was never completed, and in 1970 was overlaid by a very different attempt at connecting the Cape to Cairo, as part of the Trans‑African Highway network. This 56,683km‑long system of highways – some dating from the colonial era, some built as part of the 1970s project, and some only recently built – aimed to create lines of connection across the African continent, from north to south as well as east to west.  Here, postcolonial state power invested in ‘moving the continent’s people and economies from past to future’, as architectural historians Kenny Cupers and Prita Meier write in their 2020 essay ‘Infrastructure between Statehood and Selfhood: The Trans‑African Highway’. The highways were to be built with the support of Kenya’s president Jomo Kenyatta, Ghana’s president Kwame Nkrumah and Ghana’s director of social welfare Robert Gardiner, as well as the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). This project was part of a particular historical moment during which anticolonial ideas animated most of the African continent; alongside trade, this iteration of Cape to Cairo centred social and cultural connection between African peoples. But though largely socialist in ambition, the project nevertheless engaged modernist developmentalist logics that cemented capitalism.  Lead image: Over a century in the making, the final stretches of the Cairo–Cape Town Highway are being finished. Egypt completed the section within its borders last year and a section over the dry Merille River in Kenya was constructed in 2019. Credit: Allan Muturi / SOPA / ZUMA / Alamy. Above: The route from Cairo to Cape Town, outlined in red, belongs to the Trans‑African Highway network, which comprises nine routes, here in black The project failed to fully materialise at the time, but efforts to complete the Trans‑African Highway network have been revived in the last 20 years; large parts are now complete though some links remain unbuilt and many roads are unpaved or hazardous. The most recent attempts to realise this project coincide with a new continental free trade agreement, the agreement on African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), established in 2019, to increase trade within the continent. The contemporary manifestation of the Cairo–Cape Town Highway – also known as Trans‑African Highway (TAH) 4 – is marked by deepening neoliberal politics. Represented as an opportunity to boost trade and exports, connecting Egypt to African markets that the Egyptian government view as ‘untapped’, the project invokes notions of trade steeped in extraction, reflecting the neoliberal logic underpinning contemporary Egyptian governance; today, the country’s political project, led by Abdel Fattah El Sisi, is oriented towards Egyptian dominance and extraction in relation to the rest of the continent.  Through an allusion to markets ripe for extraction, this language brings to the fore historical forms of domination that have shaped the connections between Egypt and the rest of the continent; previous iterations of connection across the continent often reproduced forms of domination stretching from the north of the African continent to the south, including the Trans‑Saharan slave trade routes across Africa that ended in various North African and Middle Eastern territories. These networks, beginning in the 8th century and lasting until the 20th, produced racialised hierarchies across the continent, shaping North Africa into a comparably privileged space proximate to ‘Arabness’. This was a racialised division based on a civilisational narrative that saw Arabs as superior, but more importantly a political economic division resulting from the slave trade routes that produced huge profits for North Africa and the Middle East. In the contemporary moment, these racialised hierarchies are bound up in political economic dependency on the Arab Gulf states, who are themselves dependent on resource extraction, land grabbing and privatisation across the entire African continent.  ‘The Cairo–Cape Town Highway connects Egypt to African markets viewed as “untapped”, invoking notions steeped in extraction’ However, this imaginary conjured by the Cairo–Cape Town Highway is countered by a network of streets scattered across Africa that traces the web of Egyptian Pan‑African solidarity across the continent. In Lusaka in Zambia, you might find yourself on Nasser Road, as you might in Mwanza in Tanzania or Luanda in Angola. In Mombasa in Kenya, you might be driving down Abdel Nasser Road; in Kampala in Uganda, you might find yourself at Nasser Road University; and in Tunis in Tunisia, you might end up on Gamal Abdel Nasser Street. These street names are a reference to Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt’s first postcolonial leader and president between 1956 and 1970.  Read against the contemporary Cairo–Cape Town Highway, these place names signal a different form of connection that brings to life Egyptian Pan‑Africanism, when solidarity was the hegemonic force connecting the continent, coming up against the notion of a natural or timeless ‘great divide’ within Africa. From the memoirs of Egyptian officials who were posted around Africa as conduits of solidarity, to the broadcasts of Radio Cairo that were heard across the continent, to the various conferences attended by anticolonial movements and postcolonial states, Egypt’s orientation towards Pan‑Africanism, beginning in the early 20th century and lasting until the 1970s, was both material and ideological. Figures and movements forged webs of solidarity with their African comrades, imagining an Africa that was united through shared commitments to ending colonialism and capitalist extraction.  The route between Cape Town in South Africa and Cairo in Egypt has long occupied the colonial imaginary. In 1930, Margaret Belcher and Ellen Budgell made the journey, sponsored by car brand Morris and oil company Shell Credit: Fox Photos / Getty The pair made use of the road built by British colonisers in the 19th century, and which forms the basis for the current Cairo–Cape Town Highway. The road was preceded by the 1874 Cape to Cairo Railway project, which connected the colonies of the British Empire Credit: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division This network of eponymous streets represents attempts to inscribe anticolonial power into the materiality of the city. Street‑naming practices are one way in which the past comes into the present, ‘weaving history into the geographic fabric of everyday life’, as geographer Derek Alderman wrote in his 2002 essay ‘Street Names as Memorial Arenas’. In this vein, the renaming of streets during decolonisation marked a practice of contesting the production of colonial space. In the newly postcolonial city, renaming was a way of ‘claiming the city back’, Alderman continues. While these changes may appear discursive, it is their embedding in material spaces, through signs and maps, that make the names come to life; place names become a part of the everyday through sharing addresses or giving directions. This quality makes them powerful; consciously or unconsciously, they form part of how the spaces of the city are navigated.  These are traces that were once part of a dominant historical narrative; yet when they are encountered in the present, during a different historical moment, they no longer act as expressions of power but instead conjure up a moment that has long passed. A street in Lusaka named after an Egyptian general made more sense 60 years ago than it does today, yet contextualising it recovers a marginalised history of Egyptian Pan‑Africanism.  Markers such as street names or monuments are simultaneously markers of anticolonial struggle as well as expressions of state power – part of an attempt, by political projects such as Nasser’s, to exert their own dominance over cities, towns and villages. That such traces are expressions of both anticolonial hopes and postcolonial state power produces a sense of tension within them. For instance, Nasser’s postcolonial project in Egypt was a contradictory one; it gave life to anticolonial hopes – for instance by breaking away from European capitalism and embracing anticolonial geopolitics – while crushing many parts of the left through repression, censorship and imprisonment. Traces of Nasser found today inscribe both anticolonial promises – those that came to life and those that did not – while reproducing postcolonial power that in most instances ended in dictatorship.  Recent efforts to complete the route build on those of the post‑independence era – work on a section north of Nairobi started in 1968 Credit: Associated Press / Alamy The Trans‑African Highway network was conceived in 1970 in the spirit of Pan‑Africanism At that time, the routes did not extend into South Africa, which was in the grip of apartheid. The Trans‑African Highway initiative was motivated by a desire to improve trade and centre cultural links across the continent – an ambition that was even celebrated on postage stamps There have been long‑standing debates about the erasure of the radical anticolonial spirit from the more conservative postcolonial states that emerged; the promises and hopes of anticolonialism, not least among them socialism and a world free of white supremacy, remain largely unrealised. Instead, by the 1970s neoliberalism emerged as a new hegemonic project. The contemporary instantiation of Cape to Cairo highlights just how pervasive neoliberal logics continue to be, despite multiple global financial crises and the 2011 Egyptian revolution demanding ‘bread, freedom, social justice’.  But the network of streets named after anticolonial figures and events across the world is testament to the immense power and promise of anticolonial revolution. Most of the 20th century was characterised by anticolonial struggle, decolonisation and postcolonial nation‑building, as nations across the global south gained independence from European empire and founded their own political projects. Anticolonial traces, present in street and place names, point to the possibility of solidarity as a means of reorienting colonial geographies. They are a reminder that there have been other imaginings of Cape to Cairo, and that things can be – and have been – otherwise. 2025-06-13 Kristina Rapacki Share

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd" The São Paulo International Architecture Biennale is one of the most important venues for the promotion and discussion of Brazilian architectural culture. Its history begins in 1951, when it was part of the São Paulo Art Biennale as the International Architecture Exhibition. There were eleven editions between 1951 and 1971. Under 1973, the first BIAsp under the current format was conducted. Over two million individuals are thought to have attended the 13 biennales since then; certain editions, such as the 12th, had over 300,000 guests.This year, the 14th São Paulo International Architecture Biennale will take place from September 18 to October 19, 2025, at the Oca Pavilion in Ibirapuera Park, an iconic building designed by Oscar Niemeyer.The curatorial proposal is "Extremes: Architectures for an Overheated Planet", emphasizing the problem of climate extremes. The point of no return challenges us to reconsider how we live on Earth, looking for solutions not just in production studies and scientific discoveries but also in the knowledge of Indigenous villages, quilombos (traditional communities of enslaved people who have escaped), and urban peripheries. By offering tangible solutions to global warming and methods for adjusting to the extreme occurrences we are already seeing, the Biennale will act as a meeting place for various knowledge systems.The 14th BIAsp's curators have identified five thematic axes that will direct the event's talks, ideas, and proposals, drawing inspiration from the IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) findings, especially the AR6 report:–Preserving Forests and Reforesting Cities–Embracing Water–Refurbishing More and Building Green–Moving and Reaching Places Together with Renewable Energies–Ensuring Climate Justice and Social HousingSix architects—Renato Anelli, Karina de Souza, Marcos Cereto, Clevio Rabelo, Marcella Arruda, and Jerá Guarani—are part of the collective curatorship for the 14th BIAsp this year. Through their professional activities, they represent many regional contexts throughout Brazil.The top image in the article courtesy of São Paulo International Architecture Biennale.> via São Paulo International Architecture Biennale

There is a new Humble Bundle of interest to game developers, the Big Bang Unreal & Unity (and Godot) Asset Humble Bundle. This massive bundle contains a ton of 3D environments, props, SFX and characters for Unreal, Unity and a few for Godot as well. You can also transfer assets from one game engine to another using the guides we provide below. In addition to this new Humble Bundle there are several other game asset bundles for these game engine by Leartes running over on GumRoad: Space Nova Unreal Bundle (Use code SN70) Star Nova Unreal Bundle (Use Code SN40) Unity Space Nova Bundle (Use Code SN70) Unity Star Nova Bundle (Use Code SN40) Godot Star Nova Bundle (Use Code SN40) The Big Bang Unreal & Unity (and Godot) Asset Humble Bundle is organized into the following tiers: 1$ Tier Military Boat SFX CyberpunkZBrush: Beginner to Advanced Course on Three MiniaturesVFX Smoke (Unreal Engine)Water VFX (Unreal Engine)Object Distribution Tool (Unreal Engine)500+ Fantasy IconsCosmos One Month Free SubscriptionCosmos 50% Discount CodeMedian Tier Ultimate Lighting and Camera Tool ( ULCT ) Feudal Japanese CastleStylized Desert BazaarStylized Medieval HouseStylized Magical Haunted VillageThe Gas StationFantasy Mystic VillageMilitary Barriers PackSUV 02 DriveableSFX WinterVFX Dust (Unreal Engine)Substance 3D Painter: A Complete Guide for BeginnersSFX 3 Police Station (SFX)Modeling TutorialPost Apocalyptic Melee Weapons VOL.2Material Assignment Tool (Unreal Engine)Police Character / NPC (Unreal Engine)1950s Mafia Character / NPC / RiggedCyberpunk Holograms / Neon Set ( Set of 33 Holograms )Cyberpunk Street Lights (Unreal Engine)Driveable / Animated Retro Cyberpunk Hover Car 0220$ Tier Miami Club Megapack Ancient Cathedral EnvironmentThe Grand Egyptian TempleThe Carnival EnvironmentUnderwater Sunken ShipHaunted HouseThe Fantastic HillsThe Ancient Library EnvironmentPirate Tavern EnvironmentChinese Alley EnvironmentUltimate Level Art Tool – ULATThe Rally Point EnvironmentJapanese TempleFeudal Japan WarroomStylized House Along RiverModular Stylized Cyberpunk StreetStylized Ice Dragon VillageStylized Perched ChurchStylized Desert MineStylized Sci-Fi Modern CityRetropunk Saloon Environment (Unreal Engine)Cyberpunk Kyiv Street EnvironmentChurch / Cathedral InteriorGothic Street1950s BusinessmanCyberpunk Billboards / Signs Set / 35 Unique Pieces ( Cyberpunk Billboards )Military Exterior PackClassic Sport Car 01Classic Car 02Classic Car 03SUV 03 DriveableFPS 4K Western Guns – VOL.3FPS 4K Custom Modern Handguns – VOL.4SFX Cyberpunk GunsVFX Explosion (Unreal Engine)Creating an Industrial Concept Art in Blender / PhotoshopCreating Abandoned Church 3D Environment in Unreal Engine 5Unreal Engine 5, Blender – Creating a Classroom EnvironmentSFX 1 Warzone (SFX)SFX 2 Soulslike (SFX)VFX 1 Warzone (VFX)Post Apocalyptic Melee Weapons VOL.1FPS 4K Custom Modern Shotguns – VOL.2FPS 4K Western Guns – VOL.2 (Unreal Engine)Stable EnvironmentIf you are looking at using the Unreal or Unity assets in another game engine, be sure to check out the following conversion guides: You can learn more about the Big Bang Unreal & Unity (and Godot) Asset Humble Bundle in the video below. Using links on this page helps support GFS (and thank you very much if you do!)

Architectural education is an important part of becoming an architect. It provides a foundation in art and architectural history, basic concepts of design, and foundational technical knowledge. It promotes critical thinking, examines social and economic complexities, and encourages creativity and teamwork. I may be biased, but I believe the camaraderie and pride that are part of architectural students’ design studio experience are unmatched by any other educational program.    In this issue of the AIA Canada Journal, Pauline Thimm, Hannah Allawi and I reached out to schools of architecture from across the country. Our conversations centred on research themes in today’s design studios, with a focus on housing affordability. Students and faculties are actively engaging in challenging the status quo on the shortage of housing. It takes a village to derive plausible solutions—and schools of architecture across the country are united in bringing their voices and minds to this pressing issue. In a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-supported partnership, AIA Canada Society is also actively participating in research on designing inclusive, sustainable and healthy cities.  We want to thank all the educators who took time to speak with us and provide their invaluable insights.  -Dora Ng, AIA Canada Society President Rick Haldenby Professor, School of Architecture, University of Waterloo Rick Haldenby, FRAIC, served as Director of the School of Architecture at the University of Waterloo from 1988 to 2013, and founded the Waterloo Rome Program in 1979. Among many accomplishments, Haldenby was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2021, and has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Council of University Schools of Architecture, the Special Jury Prize at the Kitchener Waterloo Arts Awards, and the Dr. Jean Steckle Award for Heritage Education from the Waterloo Regional Heritage Foundation. Q: Kitchener-Waterloo is known as a university town that is home to top Ontario post-secondary institutions. Tell us a bit about the twin cities. A: The Waterloo Region’s industrial development began with the arrival of German-speaking immigrants in the 19th century. Its cities were literally “founded on factories.” Its prosperity was influenced by a rail-based transport system. In the late 19th century, the extension of the Grand Trunk Railway contributed to the industrialization of the area. In the 1950s, visionary community leaders made concerted efforts to build educational infrastructure, and in just a few years created the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University and Conestoga College. The region experienced significant growth in manufacturing industries, insurance companies, and high-tech businesses over time. Home to two universities and a college, it is an education hub that attracts talents and businesses, which increases the demand for housing for students and families. The once-suburban neighbourhood of Northdale, surrounded by these post-secondary institutions, saw a surge in student population in the early 2000s, including a large percentage of international students. We saw a building boom to increase medium-density housing like stacked townhomes and row houses, as well as taller buildings up to 30+ stories in what was once a primarily low-density town. Q:  Like the building boom in Waterloo, we saw many residential high-rises going up in the GTA, but this growth still does not adequately address housing demand. In many cities across Canada, there are unprecedented housing issues including affordability and homelessness. What do you see emerging as key areas of interest and inquiry among students at your school? Is housing one of them? A: Connection between affordability and homelessness is not a one-to-one problem. The housing crisis can have many dimensions. In our undergraduate design studios, we are laying the groundwork for approaches to affordability, environmental responsibility and social justice. Many of my colleagues and graduate students at the University of Waterloo are involved in various research studies, exhibitions and campaigns, including the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. We also try to keep a balance to cover diverse topics in architecture, including housing. Second- and third-year design studios focus on urban intensification amid the building boom, enabling students to discuss ideas for keeping cities habitable and attractive for future growth. Design studios have also worked with the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity to support the ambitious program to build affordable housing for families in need. In partnership with the City of Cambridge, Waterloo architecture students designed and built tiny homes as prototypes for emergency shelter. Photo courtesy University of Waterloo Q: Any examples of collaboration between studio projects and practicing professionals in tackling the housing crisis? A: Through collaboration and communication with the community, the School of Architecture has engaged with social housing agencies, municipality planning authorities, Indigenous groups and aging-in-place consultants to develop housing solutions for a diverse population including seniors. Moving the School of Architecture from Waterloo to Cambridge in 2004 was a communal project with great support from the City of Cambridge. Occupying the repurposed silk mill in Cambridge, the school aims to be the design campus for the city to allow exchange of creative ideas and intellectual stimulation. Since the move, we have had many opportunities to collaborate and work closely with the municipality. The Tiny Homes project is an initiative in partnership with the City of Cambridge, whereby Waterloo architecture students were engaged to design and build prototype tiny homes that offer practical, cost-effective and dignified emergency housing solutions. It is an example of collaboration that makes a meaningful difference.  Photo by Danielle Sneesby Shauna Mallory-Hill Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Research, Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba Shauna Mallory-Hill, PhD, is currently Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Research at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture. Her 25-year-long career spans teaching, research and advocacy, with a focus on building systems, universal and sustainable design, as well as building performance evaluation. Her sponsored research includes accessible design, along with post-occupancy work on how sustainably designed environments impact human health and productivity. Q: How is The University of Manitoba Faculty of Architecture (FAUM) specifically engaging in design explorations addressing housing?  A: In addition to hosting public events and delivering focused design studios, we are actively engaged and support research collaborations including funded research with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). We are also committed to partnering and working with communities.    In 2022, U of M professor Lancelot Coar’s undergraduate studio engaged with One House Many Nations to develop a mobile design and construction trailer for on-site design-build work. Photo by Lancelot Coar One House Many Nations (OHMN) originally started as a grassroots movement to shed light on the housing crisis faced by Indigenous communities.  For the past four years, OHMN, led by Dr. Alex Wilson and Sylvia McAdam, has been working with faculty and students from FAUM, houseless First Nations youth, and students at Saskatoon’s Nutana Collegiate to design and construct small, affordable homes that are trucked to remote Indigenous communities in Northern Saskatchewan. After a house is delivered, it is occupied by one of the youth participants. Each year, another house is built, informed by post-occupancy data that was collected on the previous year’s house(s).  First Nations youth participants have learned to advocate for community needs while gaining skills and knowledge about home-building and maintenance.  Lancelot Coar’s 2022 undergraduate architecture studio engaged with OHMN to create a mobile design lab that can be brought onsite to design-build in First Nations communities. OHMN’s work was exhibited at the Canadian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2023.    Q: What are key areas of interest and inquiry among students at your school? Is housing one of them?  A: We are seeing that this generation is increasingly concerned about what is happening to the world—concerns about sustainability, housing, and food deserts are paramount. Students want to work on things that are meaningful. Students also really embrace hands-on learning. Any time students are encouraged and supported to engage with community, they feel like they are making a difference.     Here in Winnipeg, we can all see the encampments of the unhoused. It is apparent that there is work to do to solve this dilemma.This past year, one of our housing-themed studios worked with a local grassroots organization, St. Boniface Street Links, in the design and construction of a prototype transitional house as a safer interim housing solution. This housing project ultimately was built and included as part of the annual Warming Huts design competition at the Forks. Q: Are there any barriers to collaborating in this way, involving practitioners and real community groups? A: We often get groups who approach us to collaborate. We need to be clear that we are not providing a design service, but we are committed to the exploration of ideas and working together on important problems.     It is important to me that doing housing research work in collaboration with Indigenous communities is respectful, responsible and reciprocal. Ensuring that some benefit of the research stays with the community is crucial, given the long history of research involving Indigenous populations where this did not happen. A willingness to listen and understand community priorities and context—and adapt—is key.  It can be difficult for some to have enough capacity to deal with added administration (meetings, paperwork, report writing, etc.); a local liaison is helpful.  The Wîkiwin student-built house is part of an ongoing collaboration with Kawéchiwasik Development Corporation at York Factory First Nation. Photo by Shauna Mallory-Hill Q: Some of your current research and design work is supported by the CMHC Housing Supply Challenge. Can you tell us a bit about that project?  A: The CMHC funding in part supports the Wîkiwin Training Enterprise of York Factory First Nation project, geared to building healthy homes by leveraging local resources and tradespeople in collaboration with the Kawéchiwasik Development Corporation. The purpose is to provide design education and construction skills in the northern communities where they are needed. A key goal is that kids won’t need to leave their communities to get skills, and communities can develop capacity to increase their self-sufficiency.    In collaboration with FAUM, the project will include a comprehensive education model based on a co-created curriculum, training programs, housing designs and research on building materials. Students earn micro-credentials through distance education to get basic training in design and construction, or have the opportunity to work as research assistants to assist with collection of data, such as indoor air quality.     Focusing on sustainable construction techniques, using local materials like stone and wood, the initiative promises to employ residents, cut production costs, and enhance housing quality. Additionally, the creation of a year-round skilled trades school facility and housing for students and teachers will boost the local labour force.    Stage 2 of the project involves the building of the Wîkiwin skilled trades training and research facility and dormitory. This phase will also see the expansion of the educational curriculum in partnership with the University of Manitoba, ultimately increasing the labour force capacity of York Factory First Nation and creating more opportunities for its youth.  Sasha Tsenkova Professor of Planning and Director of the Cities, Policy & Planning Lab at the School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape (SAPL), University of Calgary Sasha Tsenkova, PhD, is a professor at the School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape at the University of Calgary. With a background in architecture, urbanism, and planning, her work spans over 30 years of research, teaching, and professional practice, focusing on creating more inclusive and sustainable urban environments. She is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planners and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada/Academy of Social Sciences. Q: Major cities across Canada are seeing unprecedented housing issues. As an educator, what have you seen in research or studio projects that tackle these issues?    A: We are a nation of suburban homeowners, where much of the wealth creation in the urban system is driven by investment in housing. Today, income and wealth inequality in Canadian cities is higher than ever before, which is exacerbated by the suburban homeownership model. In cities, newcomers to the housing market—young and old—face incredible affordability constraints. Homelessness has grown exponentially and homeownership is not within the reach of the middle class. In the design world, we must begin to address, through systemic intervention, these challenges. Many of our research and studio projects focus on sustainable urbanism through designs  that explore strategies to provide affordable homes across the income spectrum and embrace different types of housing.      We cannot continue to replicate a model of postwar city building that no longer serves the needs of the people. We encourage students to learn from successful cities in Europe, Latin America, and the United States, where a more systematic approach to neighbourhood design and redevelopment allows various types of housing to be built along the same street within a community. This is a different approach to growth premised on urban regeneration and intensification, where people come before cars and community identity evolves over time.   Q: Any examples of collaboration between studio projects and practicing professionals in tackling the housing crisis?  A: We focus on community-engaged scholarship, research and teaching at SAPL. Integration with communities of practice is necessary, but so is a direct relationship with clients, so that we situate our studio projects in the real-world. The housing crisis is multi-faceted and future professionals need to be aware of the complexity of design intervention—solutions require a nexus of policy, planning and design approaches. In a graduate school, we must prepare aspiring designers, architects and planners to embrace these challenges.      The interface with critical practice is the ultimate test for us to remain relevant and committed to innovation and excellence within the realm of what we can control. Studio teaching needs to address housing affordability in a systematic way, as it will make a critical difference within Canadian society and will define the future of our cities. This requires a much stronger emphasis on sustainable urbanism and community-based projects.  Q: What policies do you feel cities in Canada should create or address to aid in addressing the housing crisis and homelessness?  A: The planning regulation, upzoning, and permitting processes can be improved to enhance infill housing, gentle density and inner-city intensification. Recognizing that cities and neighbourhoods need to be built for people and not for cars requires a focus on transit-oriented development in strategic locations where low-density retail, industrial and housing sites can be redeveloped to become mixed-use urban villages with a variety of housing types. Changes to minimum parking standards and lot coverage can energize the infusion of missing middle housing to create opportunities for multi-generational living, cohousing and home sharing with renters. But the real difference in addressing the homelessness and affordability crisis is the renewed investment into affordable housing through partnerships of federal, provincial and municipal governments with non-profit organizations. We need to grow this segment of the housing market and to make sure that it is an integral part of our urban neighbourhoods through the design process. Q: What role do you think schools of architecture and design have in tackling the housing crisis in Canada?  A: We need to make a major commitment to building knowledge and capacity that focuses on solutions to the housing crisis in our curriculum. Design thinking is premised on innovation; it is part of the competency, creativity and collaboration that we try to instill in future professionals. Architects today are absent from the design of neighbourhoods on the periphery of our cities. We need to bring back that creativity and the knowledge of architects, planners, and designers, and develop the prototypes that will provide solutions to the housing crisis.     SAPL is moving downtown so that we can be a part of downtown rebuilding and innovation. Our adaptive reuse of existing office space in Calgary’s downtown will provide opportunities to connect to local businesses and residents and offer immersion in city life that is critical for our students. Our school will be a living urban design lab, where we embrace social justice, community-inspired design work and collaborate with different communities of practice to demonstrate viable solutions for changing cities and changing societies.   Sara Stevens Associate Professor & Chair – Urban Design at the School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture (SALA), University of British Columbia Sara Stevens is an architectural historian and Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Her book Developing Expertise (Yale University Press, 2016) studies real estate development in 20th-century American cities. She is a member of the collective Architects Against Housing Alienation, curators of the Canada Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. Q:  Major cities across Canada are seeing unprecedented housing issues (affordability issues and homelessness). As an educator, what have you seen in research or studio projects that tackle these issues?  A: There are so many great examples of design studios in Canada that are looking at housing challenges, such as the ‘Not for Sale’ study abroad course on contemporary housing that recently won the ACSA’s 2024 Architectural Education Award. McGill has a long history of housing research with the Minimum Cost Housing Group, which was the subject of a recent exhibition curated by Ipek Türeli. The work of Shawn Bailey and Lancelot Coar at the University of Manitoba is bringing really innovative pedagogy to the question of housing for Indigenous communities to design schools.  Q: Any examples of collaboration between studio projects and practicing professionals in tackling the housing crisis?  A: At UBC, questions around missing middle housing brought forth a collaboration between Haeccity Studio Architects and UBC students that resulted in a publication of the students’ work, co-sponsored by SALA and the Urbanarium, an organization in Vancouver that is a forum for sharing ideas about city building, particularly around climate change and housing affordability. The Urbananium’s design competitions have focused on missing middle housing, mixed-use neighbourhoods, and the codes and regulations that are barriers to housing affordability. Their current competition, Decoding Timber Towers, is focused on prefab and mass timber housing.  Q: What policies do you feel cities in Canada should create or address to aid in the housing crisis and homelessness?  A: I think that Canada needs to take UNDRIP and the TRC Calls to Action seriously. We can’t separate the issue of housing for Indigenous people, and the history of colonization that it’s part of, from the housing challenges everyone else faces. The United Nations Housing as a Human Right work is a great resource on this, as their work also points to the problems of financialization and the effect this has had on renters, social housing, and un-housed folks.  The Land Back Courtyard was part of the Not For Sale exhibition at the Canada Pavilion in the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. Photo by Maris Mezulis Q: What role do you think schools of architecture and design have in tackling the housing crisis in Canada? A: Schools of architecture and design can play an important role by educating students about the role of architects in the housing crisis in Canada. We need the next generation of architects to understand that they have a part to play. It’s not an issue that can be solved through policy and the market alone: their expertise in design, which of course touches policy and works with the private sector, is inherently part of this issue.     To develop deeper conversations around this, I am working with collaborators in the collective Architects Against Housing Alienation to organize a super-studio across Canada for the next school year (25-26) called “End Housing Alienation Now!” that is inviting all schools of architecture to run studios on a shared set of themes and principles. (This builds off of the exhibition and campaign we did for the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, which the teaching award I mentioned is also related to.) We have commitments from almost all the schools already, and have hosted a number of conversations with people from the schools to develop how this will work, balancing what is shared vs. independent, the different schedules and levels of students, etc.      For these studios, one ambition is that the studios work with local activists, advocates, and professional practices to show students how important these kinds of collaborations can be, and how important embedded local knowledge is. We hope to share resources and create opportunities for students to connect across geographies to ensure that many, many people with lots of passion and expertise are focused on this topic.     As appeared in the June 2025 issue of Canadian Architect magazine  The post AIA Canada Journal: Canadian educators on housing affordability appeared first on Canadian Architect.

When George R.R. Martin crafted the world of Westeros back in the 90s, he probably didn’t think his words would go on to spawn graphic novels, TV shows, action figures, video games, and more. Moreover, I doubt the author expected his works to be adapted into a mobile-friendly action-RPG built to prioritize predatory microtransactions over the rich lore he’d spent decades perfecting. Yet in 2025, we have Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, a visually striking open-world exploration game that looks compelling in motion, but hones in more on menus and currency than fantasy adventure. And, as you push deeper into its sizable campaign to uncover a plethora of in-game currencies and progress-halting hurdles, the neo-medieval jaunt starts to feel more like a lesson in asset management than a thoughtful RPG. Kingsroad takes place during season four of the HBO TV series, putting you in the fur-lined boots of a northern-born bastard of House Tyre. With your father sickly and your inheritance caught up in the strict succession rules of the realm, the only hope for the safety of your people is to borrow, beg, and steal your way into the hearts of the lords and ladies of Westeros. Naturally, things aren’t as simple as just asking, and you’ll have to go round the houses (literally) to solve land disputes, find missing soldiers, and knock together the heads of vassal-house warriors on your way to earning your flowers. Alongside a cavalcade of curious NPCs, there are also White Walkers, mythical beasts, and traitorous Boltons to butt heads with. Thankfully, Westeros’ misfortune makes for an enticing landing pad for you to start from. PlayBefore you dive into the cobbled streets and open roads of Westeros, though, you’ll first need to pick a combat archetype to play as: a brutish Sellsword, a skilful Knight, or a nimble Assassin. Fuelled by my love of Brienne of Tarth and Dungeons & Dragons’ Barbarian class, I opted for the axe-wielding Sellsword, whose heavy strikes can easily wind gaggles of enemy forces. Indecisive? Good news: Kingsroad does allow you to switch between archetypes at any time, and your inventory is shared across your three possible characters, so you can boost your alts with your main’s hard-earned loot. That said, I was disappointed to find that once you finalise a character, you can’t delete them and start that class over, or change their name, a feature that bit me in the butt when testing how unsightly I could make my Knight. With your combat destiny chosen, Kingsroad’s decently impressive character creator lets you use a mixture of face-contorting sliders and colour-pickers to specialise your plucky hero. It doesn’t have the depth of something like Dragon’s Dogma 2 (although that’s an admittedly high bar), but I am glad I was able to bestow my characters with an identity that felt personal to me – which is to say moody, and tastefully adorned with smudgy eyeliner and edgy facial scars. You'll explore an impressively recreated map of Westeros.“Kingsroad wastes no time teaching you the basics of its combat and platforming with a tight but comprehensive tutorial, which takes you beyond the wall and back again. That’s where you’ll meet the first of many familiar faces for any fans of the show, as Jon Snow and Samwell Tarley do a decent job of filling in the narrative gaps for those in need of a season four recap. While the digital renditions of these well-known characters aren’t the most flattering, their conversations felt thoughtfully written and helped to establish my lowborn place within the setting. Soon enough, though, Kingsroad lets go of your hand and allows you to roam free across the countryside, providing a choice of campaign quests and side missions to follow, as well as plenty of points of interest to chase on your map. The open world of Kingsroad gave me the freedom to explore this (mostly) faithfully reimagined Westeros, and I enjoyed riding across snowy plateaus and uncovering the secrets of curious stone architecture nestled on the horizon. But the initial exhilaration of high fantasy galavanting wore off quickly as the edges of developer Netmarble’s fantasy panopticon started to show. For every delicate snowflake at Castle Black or butterfly dancing in Winterfell, there were plenty more low-poly fruit trees, bouncy grass patches, and possessed weapons to pick at the sheen. I admire the sheer scale of the open world Kingsroad is offering, but it’s lacking the visual consistency to make it realistic and immersive. As I soon noticed those cracks in the facade, Kingsroad started to feel like a game full of pulled punches, despite how promising it seemed at a distance.This lack of polish extends to your movement on both foot and horseback – ice skating would be the most fitting comparison. When exploring the frosty reaches of the North, this sensation is strangely fitting. However, it became wholly frustrating when it persisted while charting the sunny coastal areas near Highgarden, especially when attempting to complete the occasional platforming puzzles dotted around the icon-covered map. Typically, I was only one slip away from falling down an unscalable hillside, or worse, into a camp of fierce opponents with no way out. Up close, the animations also err on the eerie side in cutscenes. My character would often deliver a wide-eyed death stare, and I couldn't take them seriously as they’d burn holes in the townsfolk’s skulls as they explained their heart wrenching tragedies.Memorable characters surface as uncanny valley clones of themselves.“Speaking of the citizens of Westeros, their heads and eyes wobble around like strange marionettes during conversations, which dampens the atmosphere considerably. It’s a shame, because their dialogue does a great job of affirming the grim, corrupt cloud that hangs over the continent as winter approaches. I felt particularly bad laughing when an old lady thanked me for saving her daughter from being eaten by Ramsay Bolton’s dogs. Unfortunately, the most egregious offenders are often Kingsroad’s recreations of characters from the show. Memorable players, like Nymeria Sand and Varys, surface as uncanny valley clones of their likenesses. I’ll be seeing yassifed Cersei in my nightmares for many moons to come…Beyond exploration, the bulk of your time in Kingsroad is split between investing in complex resource management systems at your homestead and completing multi-stage quests and battles out in the world. As such, you can find a plethora of challenges that boost both of these areas, like dungeon crawls, bandit camps, occupied villages, and giant mythical beasts, all of which reward you handsomely for spilling blood by the gallon. How efficiently you blend your time between these two aspects is integral to maintaining a solid pace within the grind-heavy progression system – alas, a lack of technical balance makes succeeding in this endeavour profoundly painful.Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Gameplay ScreenshotsThe trouble begins with the combat, which is a total mixed bag. While your actions feel pleasantly grounded, and rugged blows always arrive with flashy particle-heavy animations, the process begins to feel overfamiliar fast. Despite the solid variety of moves available – light, heavy, and special attacks, as well as decent dodge and parry options – inaccurate hit boxes consistently hampered my attempts at strategy. Occasionally, I would need to use my head a little and skulk around an area to remove edge threats, though those tactical moments arrived few and far between. It says something unflattering that Kingsroad feels almost identical at 60 hours as it did at 20. You can specialise and upgrade your moveset in combat with traits and skill trees, too, but they do little to impact how the combat feels in motion. Kingsroad gives the impression of having useful Traits by putting options like learning to parry and crafting arrows up at the top of the trees, but as you work your way down, many of the lower options offer small percentage-based improvements to defense and attack that barely make a dent. So as your sparkly slashes lose their lustre, you’re often left cycling through the same few enemies and combos until the battle is won. It seems as though the architecture of a solid combat system is there, but much like the rest of Kingsroad, it’s all facade with no foundation. What hampers the fun most are the frequent and appropriately-named Momentum roadblocks.“Still, what hampers the fun of Kingsroad most of all are the frequently appearing and appropriately-named Momentum roadblocks. Similar to Destiny’s Gear Score, Kingsroad tallies up the quality of all your equipment, accessories, and skills into one neat number called your Momentum Score. These pesky little digits are the cruel gatekeepers of story content, forcing you to scour the map for dull side objectives that can juice the numbers and shuffle you towards the next episode. While I’m more than happy to invest in grind-heavy games like World of Warcraft Classic and no stranger to mobile-minded progress gating, the Momentum system in Kingsroad is a particularly brutish arbiter that doesn’t allow you to get crafty or punch above your weight by taking on more challenging enemies. Instead, imposing forces appear with a skull icon over their head, their damage and health ratings untouchably high. But as soon as you inch over the Momentum line, the fight shifts dramatically in your favour. This black and white process neutralises any sense of gamesmanship, and frequently forced me into hours of toil to get back to the story I was, for the most part, enjoying. Sarah's favourite fantasy jauntsSee AllWhen you’re ready to take some time out from the combat, you can invest more in the slower-paced aspects of Kingsroad, namely the tedious Estate Management side game. As the last remaining heir to Lord Tyre, his homestead, Renan’s Rest, becomes your project. As is to be expected, helping this dilapidated village flourish rewards you with the tools necessary to beef up your arsenal, and gives you a place to spend all those resources you’ve been hoarding by completing missions – though the process of cleaning up this town is about as much fun as cleaning your actual room.While the jeweller and the forge are convenient additions that allow you to craft wearable items, the most valuable activity is embarking on gacha-based Artefact Expeditions. You’ll spend resources to hire workers and send them into the wild to find more resources, as well as historical items called Relics you can then leverage to further bolster your Momentum. Similar to other gacha game systems, you’re guaranteed a high-quality item after a set amount of runs, but a standard expedition takes eight actual hours to complete, which is a frustrating turnaround when not every run guarantees a good haul. That is, unless you’re willing to pay real money to speed things up. The Story Continues - Live Service UpdatesPlayWhile it took me roughly 60 hours to complete the story missions that were available at Game of Thrones: Kingsroad’s 1.0 launch (in part thanks to the benefit of the Ultimate Founder’s Pack code we were provided for this review), once you finish up, it doesn’t really “end” and you can seek out the plethora of side quests and repeatable combat challenges across the map. While there isn’t an official roadmap for what’s on the horizon, Netmarble announced during its 1.0 release Dev Note that the team will continue to add content and make technical improvements as time goes on. Alongside the Battle Pass, there are also timed Events that offer additional goalposts and ask you to complete a series of challenges to earn further rewards. Continued support is always good, and here’s hoping things like the floaty movement and inconsistent animations might eventually get the polish they need, but I’m skeptical that much can be done to fix Kingsroad’s biggest issues without a complete rework of its economy and progression. For example, the new quests that were already added post-launch should’ve been enticing, but instead they pushed the finish line absurdly far out of sight – by my rough estimate, I would need to play more than twice what I already have just to reach the Momentum Score required to take them on (without spending any money), and that’s despite the fact that this new content seems to follow the exact same loop of mission types already used across the rest of the campaign. Thanks, but I’m good.That brings us to the elephant in the room. Almost every activity in Kingsroad can be expedited with the use of cold hard cash, which translates to Iron Bank Marks in-game. Of course, you can pay to complete an aforementioned expedition early, or buy higher-rarity expedition wagons by the dozen that don’t take time to complete. Stuck behind a Momentum block? Just purchase Gold to speedrun your jewellery maker’s upgrades and smelt higher-rated necklaces and rings to jolt your score. Typically, you can only fast travel by making your way to a special signpost first, and there’s a copper fee for each warp – but you can fast travel from anywhere for free if you pay for the premium option. Behind nearly every aggravating system in Kingsroad is a far more user-friendly one, but only if you’re willing to cough up the dough. It seems intent to toe the line between being intentionally frustrating and passably functional, subtly egging you on to pay up rather than sit through the repetitive, time-consuming activities necessary to proceed. While it’s to be expected that there will be premium aspects in a free-to-play game available on mobile devices (in addition to Steam), the overwhelming flood of paid subscriptions, resource packs, and confounding currencies feels like a heartbreaking affront to Game of Thrones fans, like myself, who have been begging for a fully-fledged Westeros RPG similar to this. Across the 60 hours I’ve played so far, I’ve felt guilty for slashing down innocent defectors and filled with joy for feeding the starving smallfolk. It's clear Netmarble wants you to feel like you’re making a difference in this world, but it’s also just as keen to remind you that you can make a difference quicker if you’re willing to enter your credit card details first. It’s sad to see so much effort put into the underlying concept of a Game of Thrones adventure like this only for it to be tarnished by microtransactions and the repetitive gameplay loops that enable them.

MSLAN corner / DevolutionSave this picture!© Xinxin GuoCoffee Shop•Chengdu, China Architects: Devolution Area Area of this architecture project Area:  80 m² Year Completion year of this architecture project Year:  2025 Photographs Photographs:Xinxin Guo Lead Architects: Jiansong Tang, Qi Wang More SpecsLess Specs Save this picture! Text description provided by the architects. We designed a teahouse with a courtyard along the sloping lakeside terrain at CPI Luhu. The platform in the courtyard draws inspiration from the small courtyards found in Minnan villages. In the design process, we aimed to keep both the building structure and the courtyard as open and transparent as possible.Save this picture!Save this picture!The building materials are mostly selected from old timber and old stone slabs in Fujian, retaining the natural texture and temperature in the hope of creating a simple and comfortable spatial atmosphere.Save this picture!Save this picture!To bring tea closer to everyday life, we also recycled tea stems and leaves to create tea residue boards, which are used in tabletops, seating, and other details. This allows the memory of tea aroma to become a tangible part of daily life.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture!There is no complicated tea ceremony here, it is more like a place where you can rest your feet at any time and have a cup of tea at your own pace. Embracing the concept of "sharing tea and wandering", it offers a relaxing and easy-going resting experience.Save this picture!Save this picture!The spatial layout emphasizes openness and flow, with large floor-to-ceiling windows that naturally extend the tea garden and lake view into the interior.Save this picture!Save this picture!Every corner offers a unique perspective and atmosphere, allowing guests to experience a distinct 'tea time by the lake' every time they are seated.Save this picture!Save this picture!Save this picture! Project gallerySee allShow less Project locationAddress:Chengdu, ChinaLocation to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.About this officeDevolutionOffice••• MaterialConcreteMaterials and TagsPublished on May 31, 2025Cite: "MSLAN corner / Devolution" 31 May 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1030433/mslan-corner-devolution&gt ISSN 0719-8884Save想阅读文章的中文版本吗?崎寻·分茶寻游 / 退化建筑是否 You've started following your first account!Did you know?You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.Go to my stream

Martina Smidova quit her job and moved to Koh Samui, Thailand, in search of a slower and more meaningful life. Amanda Goh. 2025-05-26T00:14:01Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? At 25, Martina Smidova felt there had to be more to life than the daily grind of a 9-to-5 job. She quit her corporate job in the Czech Republic to travel around Asia before settling down in Thailand. Living in Koh Samui made her realize she didn't have to follow a conventional life path. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Martina Smidova, a 29-year-old digital nomad living in Koh Samui, Thailand. It has been edited for length and clarity.At 25, I felt trapped in my corporate job.I was working 9-to-5 as a project manager in the automotive field in the Czech Republic. With an hourlongOne day, it hit me: there has to be another way to live. So I quit.I decided to find a remote job and live abroad. I didn't have a plan B. I told myself that I'd figure it out, and off I went to Asia. I'd visited before on vacation, and it felt like the right place to start over.I spent half a year in Bali before traveling around the region, including to countries like Vietnam and Malaysia. But Thailand stuck with me the most.It was the people, the food, and the lifestyle. I felt comfortable here — almost like home — so I decided to stay. She lived in Chiang Mai for two years before she moved to Koh Samui to experience island living. Martina Smidova. After spendingChiang Mai, about 450 miles north of Bangkok, and meeting my boyfriend in Phuket, wemove to Koh Samui together. I wanted to experience island lifeAt the same time, I also wanted access to modern amenities. Living in Samui, you have everything you need — plus peace and quiet. There are parts of Samui that are well-developed and attract many tourists, but if you travel to the other side of the island, you'll find villages that feel frozen in time.A year ago, my boyfriend and I moved into a two-bedroom condo in Bangrak, in the northeastern region of the island. We found it on Facebook Marketplace.I knew I wanted to be in a good location. Even though it's a small island, I didn't want to travel an hour to get to the gym or somewhere else I needed to be.We pay 55,000 Thai baht, or about $1,700, each month in rent. We have a common pool, but the view from the balcony sold me on the unit. Her condo is situated on a hill and overlooks the surrounding greenery. Martina Smidova. I have gotten toAirbnbs. It was hard for me to make friendsI still feel that way sometimes. There are different communities of people on the island, but they are often a bit older than I am.I met all of my friends either through the gym or through other friends. While the digital nomad community of young people is slowly growing, many don't stay for a long time. That's the sad part about this lifestyle — you meet amazing people and then they're gone.But the locals are really open to helping you, so I reach out when I need something.I doMy life here is so different from back homeNow I work in operational management. But since my clients are in Europe, I work European hours, which start at 2 p.m. in Thailand.I have the whole morning to myself. I'll go to the gym, have a nice breakfast, head to a coffee shop, or meet up with my friends.I start work in the afternoon and usually finish up around 6 or 7 p.m. Then it's time to have dinner or to go for a walk on the beach. She says life is much slower in Koh Samui. Martina Smidova. Back home, everybody was rushing. I saw stressed faces all the time, but it wasn't their fault.In order to meet up with friends, you need to schedule it three months in advance because everyone's so busy. But here, people are so chill.My mom came to Samui to visit me last year. It was her first time in Asia, and she experienced culture shock.I remember driving her from the airport, and she asked me incredulously, "You like it here?" It took her two weeks on the island to change her mind, and in the end, she didn't want to leave.Living abroad broadened my horizonsI'm going to be 30 soon, and I don't plan on having kids yet. I'm not sure if I ever will, and I think that's something that won't resonate with my friends back home.Before I started traveling, I didn't think about it as a choice. You grow up, you get a career, then you get a family, and that's how life works. While she misses her family, she doesn't see herself returning to the Czech Republic anytime soon. Martina Smidova. When I started meeting people who made the decision to pursue different careers or not have families, I realized, "Oh, it's a choice."I try to reflect on my life every now and then. I've been living Thailand for four years, and even today, I still have moments when I can't believe that this is my life.I don't plan on moving back in the foreseeable future. Of course, I miss my family, but I don't miss the lifestyle.

I’m feeling a strange sense of pressure as I set up my first bus route in City Bus Manager. I want to get things right for the public transportation users of this city, probably because it’s the city I actually live in. City Bus Manager uses OpenStreetMap (OSM) data to populate its maps, so I can see all the familiar streets and points of interest laid out in front of me. These are my neighbors, who, like me, want an efficient transit service. I want to be able to provide it to them — even if only in a simulation.City Bus Manager is part of a small group of management sims that are using OSM’s community-generated database to make the whole world their game setting. Other examples include Global Farmer, NIMBY Rails, and Logistical: Earth. In these games, players can build farms, railways, or delivery networks all over the globe, using data about real fields, settlements, and infrastructure to inform their decisions.When the idea of using OSM was first raised at PeDePe, the studio behind City Bus Manager, “we had no idea if it would be technically feasible,” says Niklas Polster, the studio’s co-founder. But once established, the license gave them access to an entire world of streets, buildings, and even real bus stops. And these do more than just form the game’s world. They’re also used for gameplay elements like simulating passenger behavior. “Schools generate traffic in the mornings on weekdays, while nightlife areas such as bars and clubs tend to attract more passengers in the evenings on weekends,” ” Polster says.Typically, Polster says, people are drawn to playing City Bus Manager in their local areas. (This seems to be confirmed by looking at YouTube playthroughs of the game, where creators often begin by saying they’re going to dive into their own city or town.) That personal connection appears almost hardwired into people, says Thorsten Feldmann, CEO of Global Farmer developer Thera Bytes. When they showcased the game at Gamescom in 2024, “every single booth visitor” wanted to input their own postal code and look at their own house.Global Farmer. Image: Thera BytesThere’s a specific fantasy about being able to transform a space you know so well, Feldmann says. In addition to your own home or town, the marketing for Global Farmer suggests using famous tourist locations, such as Buckingham Palace, as the beginning of your new agricultural life. “[Players creating their] own stories around those places can be even more impactful than in purely fictional environments,” Feldmann says.There is something inherently fun about being in control of a place you see every day or one that is deeply iconic. In particular, tearing down a perfectly manicured gated garden from which the British royal family takes £510 million per year and turning it into land to grow food for a country where 4.5 million children live in poverty might not be a one-to-one political solution, but it is emotionally compelling.“We’ve heard stories of players who became interested in public transport as a career thanks to the game.”The quality — or lack thereof — of public transportation is another key political topic where I live. The local buses are currently in the process of being nationalized again after what South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard calls a “failed experiment” in privatization. Maybe that’s why, even though these might just be pixels on a screen, I want to do it right. That’s a feeling many players seem to experience. “Our Discord community is full of players who are passionate about public transport,” Polster says. “We’ve heard stories of players who became interested in public transport as a career thanks to the game.”Of course, game developers using OSM data are still making games, rather than exact simulations. The real world is not always a well-balanced game design space. “In smaller towns and villages, routes can be unprofitable with realistic numbers,” Polster says. City Bus Manager compensates for this by giving players more financial support, which is a straightforward and useful bit of game design. But when it comes to treating the games as direct representations of the world, it elides some complexity. For example, according to Polster, some players have reached out to their local transportation agencies with data they’ve gathered from playing in their local areas — despite the fact that the game is not actually designed as a faithful recreation of the real world, even if its map is.NIMBY Rails. Image: Weird and WryAnother challenge is that OSM data isn’t always fully reliable. Polster explains that there can be errors or missing data that break very specific areas in the game, requiring PeDePe to manually find the issues and fix them. But OSM is also a volunteer-run program, meaning players can correct the data at the source. “Many of our players contribute directly to OpenStreetMap,” if they find errors in their local area, Polster says, which improves the dataset for everybody, no matter what they’re using it for.Density of data is also a particular issue for the Global Farmer developers, who found that OSM has a lot more information about roads than field systems. There are plenty of areas where individual field boundaries aren’t mapped, making “total grey areas where gameplay actually couldn’t happen.” The developers compensated for this by making a map editor, where players can copy satellite images from other sources to correct the data, but it means that those who don’t want to build their own maps are limited to the places where OSM has detailed data or where other players have shared their creations.Management sims have often reached for a sense of realism, and OSM data is a useful tool in that toolbox. It also allows players to control environments they know well and can connect with. But it is not a perfect recreation of the world, and even if it was, that isn’t always what games need. According to Feldmann, navigating these factors “can be very frustrating.”But, just like players, developers are drawn to the idea of blurring the lines between places they know and places they simulate. “It is also super rewarding whenever you manage to find a solution and get great results that are connected to the real world,” Feldmann says.See More: