New Canterbury Tales

This research focuses on the use of immersive storytelling to generate new shared images (visions) for a sustainable living environment and resilient community formation. How can specific media and contexts be used to reach the public and promote the desired exchange?

The aim of the research is to probe the cohesive role of immersive storytelling to:

• work on better interpretations of the complex problems in these transitions from different disciplines, and
• simultaneously work on the development of potential improvements

We do this by testing the assumed hypothesis that the use of immersive storytelling can lead to the development of new future visions together with the public, through various forms of user research. Think of established resources such as: interviews, observations, co-creation. But also, more uncommon tools such as Role Playing Games, Interactive Storytelling, Serious Gaming, Situated Design. By using these resources, various stakeholders (citizens, municipality, architects, designers, etc.) are involved in developing joint new visions for the future and continuously testing them with all stakeholders through iterative design.

The New Canterbury Tales is a participatory action research that explores design as both a knowledge-building and problem-solving activity and makes it explicitly tangible in practice. After all, research through design focuses on a direct application of the developed knowledge for the (re)definition of both goals and solution opportunities.

The PPS programme grant available for this project is €127.908,-