Reworlding: approaches to urban play in the future play lab

Reworlding as Method: Rethinking Cities Through Urban Play

The RMIT Future Play Lab brings together researchers, designers, industry partners and communities to explore how play can shape the future of cities. Founded in post-lockdown Melbourne, the lab works at the intersection of speculative design, creative placemaking and urban experimentation, using play as a way to test ideas in real-world environments.

At the centre of this work is “reworlding” — a practice-based, transdisciplinary methodology that challenges linear thinking and invites new ways of imagining and experiencing the city. Rather than focusing only on planning or policy, reworlding engages people directly through lived, embodied experiences of alternative futures.

The approach is structured around three interconnected processes: reconnect, reimagine and regenerate. These cycles enable participants to engage with place, question existing systems, and explore new possibilities for how cities might function and feel.

Play as a Tool for Urban Innovation

In the Future Play Lab, play is not just recreational, it is a method for research, engagement and change. Projects are designed as interactive experiences in public space, where experimentation, collaboration and iteration happen in real time.

This work brings together diverse disciplines including game design, architecture, sociology, art and urban design. By translating speculative ideas into tangible experiences, the lab creates opportunities for communities, policymakers and practitioners to engage with complex urban challenges in accessible and meaningful ways.

Methods of Reworlding

The lab’s work is expressed through three key approaches:

• Playful pedagogies
  Using play to open up more participatory, flexible and collaborative ways of learning and decision-making across institutions and communities.
• Regenerative play
  Exploring how play can support wellbeing, reconnect people to place, and contribute to more sustainable and regenerative futures.
• Play about place
  Creating experiences that deepen connections to place, often through hybrid physical and digital formats that reveal hidden stories, systems and perspectives within the city.

Together, these approaches position play as a powerful tool for reimagining relationships between people, place and systems.

From Experimentation to Impact

Over the past four years, the Future Play Lab has delivered more than 30 projects in public spaces, ranging from playable installations and street-based games to immersive, city-scale experiences. These projects demonstrate how urban play can inform policy, design and future city strategies, while also creating new forms of public engagement.

By situating experimentation directly within the city, the lab enables new forms of collaboration between researchers, communities and institutions, helping to translate creative ideas into practical insights for urban development.

A Platform for Collaboration

The Future Play Lab continues to work with government, industry and cultural partners to expand the role of play in shaping urban futures. Its work highlights the potential of creative, participatory methods to support more adaptive, inclusive and responsive cities.

At its core, reworlding offers a simple but powerful proposition:
that by playing with the city, we can begin to reimagine how it works and who it works for.