Berlin University Alliance

Playing with the Circular Economy Transition at the Haus der Materialisierung

The project “Trash Games: Playing with the Circular Economy Transition at the HdM” brings together the Chair of Circular Economy and Recycling Technologies (Technische Universität Berlin) and the Stadtlabor for Multimodal Anthropology (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) to develop and explore games and game design as formats of public engagement with the Circular Economy (CE).

The idea of a circular economy goes beyond current top-down efforts to achieve sustainable development by extending the life of products and the materials they contain through their reuse, repair, remanufacturing and recycling. We experiment with games as a special form of science communication enabling accessible, speculative and interactive forms of participation of non-homogeneous publics in complex topics. In cooperation with actors of the civic platform “Haus der Materialisierung” – part of the Haus der Statistik, flagship project for community-oriented neighborhood development in Berlin –, we will develop a game that explores potentials and conflicts in the social transition to a collaboratively managed circular economy.