Participatory Chinatown Project to be Built on Sandstone
Friday, Aug 21, 2009
ACDC, Emerson College Building Virtual Chinatown on Muzzy Lane’s Sandstone Platform.
Newburyport, Mass.—Muzzy Lane Software, Inc. is partnering with the Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC), Emerson College, and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) on Participatory Chinatown, an innovative new digital media project.
The Participatory Chinatown project is one of a select group of projects being funded by the MacArthur Foundation to explore digital media’s ability to help people learn. According to the project’s leaders, Participatory Chinatown “seeks to transform the planning practices shaping Boston's Chinatown from disjointed transactions between developers and communities to a persistent conversation shaped by participatory learning.” Participatory Chinatown will be designed to engage residents of all ages, languages, and backgrounds in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood to interact in a virtual world, built on Muzzy Lane’s 3D gaming platform, Sandstone. According to Emerson Assistant Professor Eric Gordon, this project will allow Chinatown residents “to actively experience, transform, and interact in proposed urban developments, and to enables residents of all ages and abilities to understand and articulate their own vision of a better neighborhood."
“Muzzy Lane is extremely pleased to join Participatory Chinatown,” said VP of Design Bert Snow. “It’s an exciting and challenging project. We think Sandstone’s flexible game-building systems and web delivery will help it succeed.” A highly collaborative project, Participatory Chinatown will be built on Muzzy Lane’s browser-based gaming platform, under the design direction of Gordon and Eric Klopher, Director of the MIT Teacher Education Program. The ACDC will lead community participation and youth engagement and the MAPC will provide technical support with both data models and lessons learned from its experience with community planning processes.
Building a 3D virtual Chinatown will allow residence to explore and role play in familiar surroundings. “We want people who come to a community meeting to have the experience of Chinatown as someone other than themselves so that they might be better able to make good decisions about the neighborhood,” Gordon explained. “By getting people out from behind their own concerns (if only for a few minutes), we hope to create the kind of empathy and civic mindedness that is ideal for providing valuable input into a planning process and also for developing trust amongst stakeholders.”
About Muzzy Lane Software
Muzzy Lane Software is an innovative developer of 3D single and multiplayer games. Based in Newburyport, Mass, the company creates its own branded games and works with partners to produce private-label games based on the company’s Sandstone platform. Sandstone delivers true 3D games in the browser, as a web service, with tight integration between the games and the web. Muzzy Lane provides simple web tools that support the customization of Sandstone games. For more information, visit www.muzzylane.com.
About the Asian Community Development Corporation
In 1987, Asian activists and leaders founded ACDC in response to the needs of the Chinatown community. Today, ACDC is expanding its programs to meet the needs of a changing and diversifying Asian American community in Greater Boston.
For more information, visit http://www.asiancdc.org
About Emerson College
Emerson College is the only comprehensive college or university in America dedicated exclusively to communication and the arts in a liberal arts context. It is located in downtown Boston, at the gateway to the Theatre District and in close proximity to major media outlets. It also has facilities in Los Angeles and the Netherlands.
For more information, visit http://www.emerson.edu
Newburyport, Mass.—Muzzy Lane Software, Inc. is partnering with the Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC), Emerson College, and the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) on Participatory Chinatown, an innovative new digital media project.
The Participatory Chinatown project is one of a select group of projects being funded by the MacArthur Foundation to explore digital media’s ability to help people learn. According to the project’s leaders, Participatory Chinatown “seeks to transform the planning practices shaping Boston's Chinatown from disjointed transactions between developers and communities to a persistent conversation shaped by participatory learning.” Participatory Chinatown will be designed to engage residents of all ages, languages, and backgrounds in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood to interact in a virtual world, built on Muzzy Lane’s 3D gaming platform, Sandstone. According to Emerson Assistant Professor Eric Gordon, this project will allow Chinatown residents “to actively experience, transform, and interact in proposed urban developments, and to enables residents of all ages and abilities to understand and articulate their own vision of a better neighborhood."
“Muzzy Lane is extremely pleased to join Participatory Chinatown,” said VP of Design Bert Snow. “It’s an exciting and challenging project. We think Sandstone’s flexible game-building systems and web delivery will help it succeed.” A highly collaborative project, Participatory Chinatown will be built on Muzzy Lane’s browser-based gaming platform, under the design direction of Gordon and Eric Klopher, Director of the MIT Teacher Education Program. The ACDC will lead community participation and youth engagement and the MAPC will provide technical support with both data models and lessons learned from its experience with community planning processes.
Building a 3D virtual Chinatown will allow residence to explore and role play in familiar surroundings. “We want people who come to a community meeting to have the experience of Chinatown as someone other than themselves so that they might be better able to make good decisions about the neighborhood,” Gordon explained. “By getting people out from behind their own concerns (if only for a few minutes), we hope to create the kind of empathy and civic mindedness that is ideal for providing valuable input into a planning process and also for developing trust amongst stakeholders.”
About Muzzy Lane Software
Muzzy Lane Software is an innovative developer of 3D single and multiplayer games. Based in Newburyport, Mass, the company creates its own branded games and works with partners to produce private-label games based on the company’s Sandstone platform. Sandstone delivers true 3D games in the browser, as a web service, with tight integration between the games and the web. Muzzy Lane provides simple web tools that support the customization of Sandstone games. For more information, visit www.muzzylane.com.
About the Asian Community Development Corporation
In 1987, Asian activists and leaders founded ACDC in response to the needs of the Chinatown community. Today, ACDC is expanding its programs to meet the needs of a changing and diversifying Asian American community in Greater Boston.
For more information, visit http://www.asiancdc.org
About Emerson College
Emerson College is the only comprehensive college or university in America dedicated exclusively to communication and the arts in a liberal arts context. It is located in downtown Boston, at the gateway to the Theatre District and in close proximity to major media outlets. It also has facilities in Los Angeles and the Netherlands.
For more information, visit http://www.emerson.edu