72 Minutes – The Urban Intervention Game

What happens when subjects such as migration, democracy or sustainability come into contact with architecture? Does taking a creative approach to urban space change the structures to be found within it and what messages can those involved and the general public glean from this? The “72 Hour Urban Action” real-time architecture competition from Tel Aviv and the Berlin artists’ group “Invisible Playground” are thus trying their hand at a joint experiment. For “72 Minutes – The Urban Intervention Game” they are bringing together staff members from German and Israeli NGOs, each of whom have just 72 minutes to get into their own specific roles as international experts and make interventions into urban space as members of the fictitious “Urban Intervention Networks” (UIN).

Pre-prepared kits of light construction materials form the basis of the game, together with tasks which push the participants to the limit with regard to role play, strategic management, technical skill, budget planning and spatial awareness. At the project’s kick-off in Berlin, which takes place in May 2015 during the German-Israeli Future Forum’s LivingFuture! event, the thematic focus will be on immigration. This acts as a test run for the participants from Israel and Germany to use all their creativity to enter into a discourse which has left its mark on the societies of both countries, change the message conveyed by an existing object in public space, and to stimulate the sort of discussions that go hand in hand with this.

This initial playful experiment is followed by a research phase so that subjects such as democracy and criminality can be grappled with in more detail and joint approaches be developed and applied in winning fashion. At the end, five thematic bundles with the appropriate kits will have been created – and the skills which the participants were able to acquire on the way to achieving this will be explored in greater depth in a workshop for organizations that will enable them to pick up on the same concepts and bring their own individual contexts to bear upon them. For after all, the game must go on...

“72 Minutes – The Urban Intervention Game” is a project by Invisible Playground from Berlin and 72 Hour Urban Action from Tel Aviv. It takes place between May 1 and December 31, 2015 and is aimed at NGO staff from Germany and Israel. Playful inventions are intended to give the participants practice in applying creative approaches to current social themes and challenges.