Modeling and Simulating the City: Deciphering the Code of a Game of Strategy

This research includes a new teaching proposal for architecture and geography, based on Systems Theory and Dynamics Systems, aimed at improving the understanding of the complex structure and dynamics of the city. SimCity, a game of strategy that allows us to design and to plan the city, is used as the software, with the aim of conducting didactic experiments, and integrating the complex relations that configure the city. The methodology incorporated theoretical and experimental stages, and concluded with a simulation exercise. The exercise had a very good reception, as a method for learning and research, creating a great aptitude for generating good research questions, by making many variables visible simultaneously. The research has developed, and participants have, subsequently, been exposed to the second version of the course, where new concepts are being integrated (emergence and cellular automata) to deepen the theoretical base, and to allow further analysis and experimentation with the game.